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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         30th November 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
  32 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
  33 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
  34 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
  35 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
  36
  37 <blockquote>
  38
  39 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
  40
  41 <blockquote>
  42 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
  43
  44 The first step is to choose a
  45 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
  46 code.<br/>
  47
  48 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
  49 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
  50
  51 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
  52 work<br/>
  53
  54 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
  55 </blockquote>
  56
  57 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
  58 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
  59 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
  60 0x57</a></small></p>
  61
  62 <p>As the Debian Website
  63 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
  64 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
  65 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
  66 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
  67 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
  68 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
  69 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
  70 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
  71 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
  72 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
  73 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
  74 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
  75 Freedom">FaiF</a>
  76 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
  77 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
  78 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
  79 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
  80 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
  81 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
  82 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
  83 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
  84 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
  85 In March the SFC supported a
  86 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
  87 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
  88 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
  89 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
  90 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
  91 conferences
  92 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
  93 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
  94 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
  95 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
  96 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
  97 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
  98 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
  99 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
 100 Software.</p>
 101
 102 <p>If you support Free Software,
 103 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
 104 what the SFC do, agree with their
 105 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
 106 principles</a>, are happy about their
 107 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
 108 work on a project that is an SFC
 109 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
 110 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
 111 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
 112 Allan Webber</a>,
 113 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
 114 Smith</a>,
 115 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
 116 Bacon</a>, myself and
 117 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
 118 becoming a
 119 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
 120 next week your donation will be
 121 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
 122 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
 123 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
 124 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
 125 social media accounts.</p>
 126
 127 </blockquote>
 128
 129 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
 130 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
 131 supporter too?</p>
 132
 133       </div>
 134       <div class="tags">
 135
 136
 137         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 138
 139
 140       </div>
 141     </div>
 142     <div class="padding"></div>
 143
 144     <div class="entry">
 145       <div class="title">
 146         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
 147       </div>
 148       <div class="date">
 149         17th November 2015
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="body">
 152         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
 153 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
 154 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
 155 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
 156 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
 157 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
 158 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
 159 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
 160 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
 161 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
 162
 163 <pre>
 164 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
 165       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
 166 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
 167 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
 168 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 169 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 170 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 171 </pre>
 172
 173 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
 174 my old key.</p>
 175
 176 <p>If you signed my old key
 177 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
 178 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
 179 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
 180 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
 181
 182       </div>
 183       <div class="tags">
 184
 185
 186         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 187
 188
 189       </div>
 190     </div>
 191     <div class="padding"></div>
 192
 193     <div class="entry">
 194       <div class="title">
 195         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
 196       </div>
 197       <div class="date">
 198         24th September 2015
 199       </div>
 200       <div class="body">
 201         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
 202 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
 203 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
 204 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
 205 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
 206 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
 207 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
 208
 209 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
 210
 211 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
 212 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
 213 by someone else.  I found
 214 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
 215 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
 216 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
 217 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
 218 from him.  Via
 219 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
 220 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
 221 discovered
 222 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
 223 available in Debian.</p>
 224
 225 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
 226 battery stats ever since. Now my
 227 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
 228 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
 229 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
 230 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
 231
 232 <pre>
 233 #!/bin/sh
 234 # Inspired by
 235 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
 236 # See also
 237 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
 238 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
 239
 240 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
 241     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
 242
 243 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
 244     (
 245         printf "timestamp,"
 246         for f in $files; do
 247             printf "%s," $f
 248         done
 249         echo
 250     ) > "$logfile"
 251 fi
 252
 253 log_battery() {
 254     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
 255     # when several log processes run in parallel.
 256     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
 257         for f in $files; do \
 258             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
 259         done)
 260     echo "$msg"
 261 }
 262
 263 cd /sys/class/power_supply
 264
 265 for bat in BAT*; do
 266     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
 267 done
 268 </pre>
 269
 270 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 271 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 272 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 273 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 274 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 275 The code for the Debian package
 276 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 277 available on github</a>.</p>
 278
 279 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 280
 281 <pre>
 282 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 283 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 284 [...]
 285 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 286 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 287 </pre>
 288
 289 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 290 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
 291 battery.</p>
 292
 293 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 294 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 295 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 296 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 297 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 298 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 299 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 300 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 301 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 302 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 303 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 304 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 305 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 306 Linux too.</p>
 307
 308 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 309 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 310 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 311 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 312 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 313 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 314 load).</p>
 315
 316 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 317 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 318 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 319 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 320 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 321 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 322 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 323 those.</p>
 324
 325 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
 326 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
 327 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
 328 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
 329 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
 330 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
 331 specific.</p>
 332
 333       </div>
 334       <div class="tags">
 335
 336
 337         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 338
 339
 340       </div>
 341     </div>
 342     <div class="padding"></div>
 343
 344     <div class="entry">
 345       <div class="title">
 346         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="date">
 349          5th July 2015
 350       </div>
 351       <div class="body">
 352         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
 353 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
 354 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
 355 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
 356 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
 357 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
 358 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
 359 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
 360 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
 361 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
 362 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
 363
 364 <p>One tip I got was to use the
 365 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
 366 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
 367 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
 368 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
 369 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
 370 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
 371
 372 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
 373 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
 374 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
 375 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
 376 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
 377 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
 378 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
 379 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
 380 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
 381 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
 382 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
 383 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
 384 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
 385 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
 386 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
 387
 388 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
 389 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
 390 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
 391 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
 392
 393 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
 394 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
 395
 396 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
 397 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
 398 different
 399 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
 400 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
 401
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="tags">
 404
 405
 406         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 407
 408
 409       </div>
 410     </div>
 411     <div class="padding"></div>
 412
 413     <div class="entry">
 414       <div class="title">
 415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
 416       </div>
 417       <div class="date">
 418          3rd July 2015
 419       </div>
 420       <div class="body">
 421         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
 422 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
 423 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
 424 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
 425 flickering.</p>
 426
 427 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 428 still as
 429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 430 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 431 good help from
 432 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 433 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 434 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 435 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 436 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 437 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 438 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 439 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 440 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 441
 442 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 443 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 444 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 445 have suggestions.</p>
 446
 447 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
 448 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
 449 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
 450
 451       </div>
 452       <div class="tags">
 453
 454
 455         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 456
 457
 458       </div>
 459     </div>
 460     <div class="padding"></div>
 461
 462     <div class="entry">
 463       <div class="title">
 464         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
 465       </div>
 466       <div class="date">
 467         22nd November 2014
 468       </div>
 469       <div class="body">
 470         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 471 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 472 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 473 courtesy of
 474 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 475 Schubert</a> and
 476 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 477 McVittie</a>.
 478
 479 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 480 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 481 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 482 you upgrade:</p>
 483
 484 <p><blockquote><pre>
 485 Package: systemd-sysv
 486 Pin: release o=Debian
 487 Pin-Priority: -1
 488 </pre></blockquote><p>
 489
 490 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 491 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 492 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 493 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 494 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 495
 496 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 497 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 498 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 499 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 500 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 501 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 502
 503 <p><blockquote><pre>
 504 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 505 </pre></blockquote><p>
 506
 507 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 508
 509 <p><blockquote><pre>
 510 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 511 </pre></blockquote><p>
 512
 513 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 514 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 515
 516 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 517 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 518 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 519 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 520 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 521 Jessie is released.</p>
 522
 523 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 524 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 525 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 526 line.</p>
 527
 528       </div>
 529       <div class="tags">
 530
 531
 532         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 533
 534
 535       </div>
 536     </div>
 537     <div class="padding"></div>
 538
 539     <div class="entry">
 540       <div class="title">
 541         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 542       </div>
 543       <div class="date">
 544         10th November 2014
 545       </div>
 546       <div class="body">
 547         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 548 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 549 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 550
 551 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 552 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 553 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 554 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 555 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 556 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 557 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 558 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 559 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 560 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 561 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 562 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 563 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 564 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 565 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 566
 567 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 568 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 569 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 570 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 571 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 572 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 573 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 574 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 575 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 576 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 577 were fairly easy, and
 578 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 579 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 580 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 581 useful approach.</p>
 582
 583 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 584 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 585 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 586 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 587 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 588 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 589 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 590 this:</p>
 591
 592 <p><blockquote><pre>
 593 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 594   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 595 </pre></blockquote></p>
 596
 597 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 598 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 599
 600 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 601 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 602 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 603 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 604 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 605 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 606 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 607 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 608 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 609 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 610 system.</p>
 611
 612 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 613 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 614 SMTorP. :)</p>
 615
 616       </div>
 617       <div class="tags">
 618
 619
 620         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 621
 622
 623       </div>
 624     </div>
 625     <div class="padding"></div>
 626
 627     <div class="entry">
 628       <div class="title">
 629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 630       </div>
 631       <div class="date">
 632         22nd October 2014
 633       </div>
 634       <div class="body">
 635         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 636 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 637 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 638 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 639 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 640 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 641 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 642 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 643 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 644 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 645 lists I recently took over:</p>
 646
 647 <p><blockquote><pre>
 648 % time listadmin xiph
 649 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 650 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 651
 652 real    0m1.709s
 653 user    0m0.232s
 654 sys     0m0.012s
 655 %
 656 </pre></blockquote></p>
 657
 658 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 659 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 660 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 661 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 662 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 663 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 664 program.</p>
 665
 666 <p>If you install
 667 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 668 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 669 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 670
 671 <p><blockquote><pre>
 672 username username@example.org
 673 spamlevel 23
 674 default discard
 675 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 676
 677 password secret
 678 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 679 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 680
 681 password hidden
 682 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 683 </pre></blockquote></p>
 684
 685 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 686 learn the details.</p>
 687
 688 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 689 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 690 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 691 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 692
 693 <p><blockquote><pre>
 694 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 695 </pre></blockquote></p>
 696
 697 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 698 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 699 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 700 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 701 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 702 email.</p>
 703
 704 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 705 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 706 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 707 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 708 software.</p>
 709
 710 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 711 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 712 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 713
 714 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 715 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 716 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 717 sure why.</p>
 718
 719       </div>
 720       <div class="tags">
 721
 722
 723         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 724
 725
 726       </div>
 727     </div>
 728     <div class="padding"></div>
 729
 730     <div class="entry">
 731       <div class="title">
 732         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 733       </div>
 734       <div class="date">
 735         17th October 2014
 736       </div>
 737       <div class="body">
 738         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 739 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 740 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 741 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 742 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 743 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 744 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 745
 746 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 747 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 748 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 749 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 750 of this story.)</p>
 751
 752 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 753 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 754 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 755 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 756 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 757 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 758 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 759 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 760 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 761 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 762
 763 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 764 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 765 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 766 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 767
 768 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 769 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 770
 771 <p><blockquote><pre>
 772 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 773 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 774 </pre></blockquote></p>
 775
 776 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 777 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 778 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 779 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 780 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 781 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 782 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 783 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 784
 785 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 786 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 787
 788 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 789 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 790 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 791 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 792 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 793
 794 <p><blockquote><pre>
 795 Task: isenkram-packages
 796 Section: hardware
 797 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 798  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 799  proposed.
 800 Test-new-install: show show
 801 Relevance: 8
 802 Packages: for-current-hardware
 803
 804 Task: isenkram-firmware
 805 Section: hardware
 806 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 807  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 808  packages are proposed.
 809 Test-new-install: mark show
 810 Relevance: 8
 811 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 812 </pre></blockquote></p>
 813
 814 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 815 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 816 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 817 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 818 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 819
 820 <p><blockquote><pre>
 821 #!/bin/sh
 822 #
 823 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 824 export PATH
 825 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 826 </pre></blockquote></p>
 827
 828 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 829 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 830
 831 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 832 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 833 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 834 install.</p>
 835
 836 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 837 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 838 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 839
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="tags">
 842
 843
 844         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 845
 846
 847       </div>
 848     </div>
 849     <div class="padding"></div>
 850
 851     <div class="entry">
 852       <div class="title">
 853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 854       </div>
 855       <div class="date">
 856          4th October 2014
 857       </div>
 858       <div class="body">
 859         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 860 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 861 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 862 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 863
 864 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 865
 866 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 867 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 868 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 869
 870       </div>
 871       <div class="tags">
 872
 873
 874         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 875
 876
 877       </div>
 878     </div>
 879     <div class="padding"></div>
 880
 881     <div class="entry">
 882       <div class="title">
 883         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 884       </div>
 885       <div class="date">
 886          4th October 2014
 887       </div>
 888       <div class="body">
 889         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 890 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 891 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 892 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 893 Dibb.</p>
 894
 895 <p>I just wrapped up
 896 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 897 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 898 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 899 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 900 0.17.</p>
 901
 902 <ul>
 903
 904  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 905  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 906    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 907  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 908  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 909  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 910  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 911  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 912  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 913    the palette size is the same.</li>
 914  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 915  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 916  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 917  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 918    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 919
 920 </ul>
 921
 922 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 923 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 924 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 925
 926       </div>
 927       <div class="tags">
 928
 929
 930         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 931
 932
 933       </div>
 934     </div>
 935     <div class="padding"></div>
 936
 937     <div class="entry">
 938       <div class="title">
 939         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 940       </div>
 941       <div class="date">
 942         26th September 2014
 943       </div>
 944       <div class="body">
 945         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 946 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 947 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 948 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 949 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 950 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 951 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 952 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 953 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 954 future.  The
 955 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 956 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 957 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 958 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 959 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 960
 961 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 962 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 963 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 964 or rsync (use
 965 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 966 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 967 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 968 install with some tweaking.</p>
 969
 970 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 971 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 972
 973 <p><blockquote><pre>
 974 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 975 </pre></blockquote></p>
 976
 977 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 978 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 979 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 980 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 981
 982 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 983 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 984 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 985 your need.</p>
 986
 987 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 988 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 989 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 990 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 991 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 992 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 993 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 994 days.</p>
 995
 996 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 997 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 998 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 999 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
1000 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
1001 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
1002 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
1003 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
1004 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
1005
1006 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
1007 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
1008 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
1009
1010       </div>
1011       <div class="tags">
1012
1013
1014         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1015
1016
1017       </div>
1018     </div>
1019     <div class="padding"></div>
1020
1021     <div class="entry">
1022       <div class="title">
1023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
1024       </div>
1025       <div class="date">
1026         25th September 2014
1027       </div>
1028       <div class="body">
1029         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
1030 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
1031 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
1032 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
1033 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
1034 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
1035 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
1036 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
1037 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
1038 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
1039 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
1040 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
1041 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
1042
1043 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
1044 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
1045 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
1046 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
1047 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
1048 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
1049 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
1050 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
1051 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
1052 list</a>. :)</p>
1053
1054       </div>
1055       <div class="tags">
1056
1057
1058         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
1059
1060
1061       </div>
1062     </div>
1063     <div class="padding"></div>
1064
1065     <div class="entry">
1066       <div class="title">
1067         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="date">
1070         16th September 2014
1071       </div>
1072       <div class="body">
1073         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
1074 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
1075 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
1076 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
1077 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
1078 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
1079 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
1080 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
1081 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
1082 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
1083 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
1084 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
1085 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
1086 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
1087
1088 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
1089 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
1090 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
1091 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
1092 depend on the small and clever package
1093 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
1094 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
1095 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
1096 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
1097 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
1098 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
1099 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
1100 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
1101 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
1102 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
1103 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
1104
1105 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
1106 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
1107 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
1108 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
1109 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
1110 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
1111 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
1112 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
1113 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
1114 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
1115 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
1116 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
1117 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
1118 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
1119 dialog.</p>
1120
1121 <p><table>
1122
1123 <tr>
1124 <th>Machine/setup</th>
1125 <th>Original tasksel</th>
1126 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
1127 <th>Reduction</th>
1128 </tr>
1129
1130 <tr>
1131 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
1132 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
1133 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
1134 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
1135 </tr>
1136
1137 <tr>
1138 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
1139 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
1140 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
1141 <td>23 min 40%</td>
1142 </tr>
1143
1144 <tr>
1145 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
1146 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
1147 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
1148 <td>11 min 50%</td>
1149 </tr>
1150
1151 <tr>
1152 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
1153 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
1154 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
1155 <td>2 min 33%</td>
1156 </tr>
1157
1158 <tr>
1159 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
1160 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
1161 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
1162 <td>4 min 21%</td>
1163 </tr>
1164
1165 </table></p>
1166
1167 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
1168 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
1169 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1170 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1171 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1172 installed.</p>
1173
1174 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1175 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1176 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1177 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1178 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1179 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1180 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1181 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1182 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1183 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1184 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1185 for the entire installation.</p>
1186
1187 <p>I've implemented this in the
1188 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1189 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1190 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1191 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1192 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1193
1194 <p><blockquote><pre>
1195 #!/bin/sh
1196 set -e
1197 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1198 info() {
1199     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1200 }
1201 error() {
1202     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1203 }
1204 override_install() {
1205     apt-install eatmydata || true
1206     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1207         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1208             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1209             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1210             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1211                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1212                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1213                     > /target$file.edu
1214                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1215                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1216                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1217                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1218             else
1219                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1220             fi
1221         done
1222     else
1223         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1224     fi
1225 }
1226
1227 override_install
1228 </pre></blockquote></p>
1229
1230 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1231 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1232
1233 <p><blockquote><pre>
1234 #! /bin/sh -e
1235 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1236 error() {
1237     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1238 }
1239 remove_install_override() {
1240     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1241         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1242         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1243             rm /target$file
1244             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1245                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1246             rm /target$file.edu
1247         else
1248             error "Missing divert for $file."
1249         fi
1250     done
1251     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1252 }
1253
1254 remove_install_override
1255 </pre></blockquote></p>
1256
1257 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1258 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1259 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1260
1261 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1262 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1263 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1264 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1265 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1266 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1267 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1268 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1269 everyone.</p>
1270
1271 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1272 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1273 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1274 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1275
1276 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1277 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1278 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1279 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1280 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1281
1282 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1283 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1284 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1285 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1286 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1287
1288       </div>
1289       <div class="tags">
1290
1291
1292         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1293
1294
1295       </div>
1296     </div>
1297     <div class="padding"></div>
1298
1299     <div class="entry">
1300       <div class="title">
1301         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
1302       </div>
1303       <div class="date">
1304         10th September 2014
1305       </div>
1306       <div class="body">
1307         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1308 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1309 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1310 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1311 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1312 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1313 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1314 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1315 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1316 those problems are gone now.</p>
1317
1318 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1319 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1320 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1321 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1322 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1323
1324 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1325 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1326 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1327
1328 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1329 line:</p>
1330
1331 <p><blockquote><pre>
1332 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1333 </pre></blockquote></p>
1334
1335 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1336 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1337 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1338 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1339
1340 <p><blockquote><pre>
1341 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1342 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1343 %
1344 </pre></blockquote></p>
1345
1346 <p>Now if only
1347 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1348 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1349 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1350 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1351 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1352 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1353 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1354 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1355 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1356
1357       </div>
1358       <div class="tags">
1359
1360
1361         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1362
1363
1364       </div>
1365     </div>
1366     <div class="padding"></div>
1367
1368     <div class="entry">
1369       <div class="title">
1370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
1371       </div>
1372       <div class="date">
1373         17th June 2014
1374       </div>
1375       <div class="body">
1376         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1377 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1378 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1379 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1380 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1381
1382 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1383 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1384 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1385 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1386 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1387 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1388 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1389 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1390 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1391 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1392 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1393 goals.</p>
1394
1395 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1396 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1397 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1398 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1399 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1400 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1401 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1402 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1403 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1404 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1405 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1406 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1407 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1408 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1409 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1410 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1411 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1412 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1413 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1414 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1415 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1416 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1417 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1418 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1419
1420 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1421 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1422 track the English original.  For this we use the
1423 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1424 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1425 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1426 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1427 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1428 files), which the translations update with the native language
1429 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1430 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1431 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1432 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1433 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1434 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1435 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1436 of the documentation.</p>
1437
1438 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1439 recommend using
1440 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1441 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1442 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1443 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1444 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1445 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1446 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1447 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1448
1449 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1450 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1451 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1452 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1453 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1454 translated images by storing translated versions in
1455 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1456 package maintainers know more.</p>
1457
1458 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1459 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1460 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1461 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1462 PDF version</a> or the
1463 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1464 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1465 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1466
1467 <p>To learn more, check out
1468 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1469 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1470 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1471 manual on the wiki</a> and
1472 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1473 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1474
1475       </div>
1476       <div class="tags">
1477
1478
1479         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1480
1481
1482       </div>
1483     </div>
1484     <div class="padding"></div>
1485
1486     <div class="entry">
1487       <div class="title">
1488         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
1489       </div>
1490       <div class="date">
1491         23rd April 2014
1492       </div>
1493       <div class="body">
1494         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1495 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1496 So I implemented one, using
1497 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1498 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1499 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1500 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1501 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1502 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1503
1504 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1505 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1506 packages to install.  The first part is in
1507 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1508 this:</p>
1509
1510 <p><blockquote><pre>
1511 Task: isenkram
1512 Section: hardware
1513 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1514  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1515  proposed.
1516 Test-new-install: mark show
1517 Relevance: 8
1518 Packages: for-current-hardware
1519 </pre></blockquote></p>
1520
1521 <p>The second part is in
1522 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1523 this:</p>
1524
1525 <p><blockquote><pre>
1526 #!/bin/sh
1527 #
1528 (
1529     isenkram-lookup
1530     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1531 ) | sort -u
1532 </pre></blockquote></p>
1533
1534 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1535 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1536 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1537 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1538 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1539 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1540
1541 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1542 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1543 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1544 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1545 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1546 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1547 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1548 the python-apt code (bug
1549 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1550 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1551 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1552 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1553 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1554 unstable today.</p>
1555
1556 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1557 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1558 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1559 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1560 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1561 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1562 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1563 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1564 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1565
1566 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1567 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1568 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1569 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1570 package.  See also
1571 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1572 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1573 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1574 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1575
1576       </div>
1577       <div class="tags">
1578
1579
1580         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1581
1582
1583       </div>
1584     </div>
1585     <div class="padding"></div>
1586
1587     <div class="entry">
1588       <div class="title">
1589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
1590       </div>
1591       <div class="date">
1592         15th April 2014
1593       </div>
1594       <div class="body">
1595         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1596 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1597 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1598 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1599 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1600 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1601
1602 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1603 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1604 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1605 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1606 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1607 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1608 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1609
1610 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1611 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1612 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1613 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1614 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1615 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1616 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1617 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1618 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1619 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1620 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1621 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1622
1623 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1624 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1625 become root:</p>
1626
1627 <p><pre>
1628 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1629   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1630   u-boot-tools
1631 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1632   freedom-maker
1633 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1634 </pre></p>
1635
1636 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1637 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1638 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1639 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1640 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1641 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1642 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1643 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1644
1645 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1646 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1647 the preseed values:</p>
1648
1649 <p><pre>
1650 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1651 </pre></p>
1652
1653 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1654 it still work.</p>
1655
1656 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1657 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1658 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1659 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1660 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1661 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1662 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1663
1664 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1665 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1666 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1667 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1668 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1669 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1670
1671       </div>
1672       <div class="tags">
1673
1674
1675         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1676
1677
1678       </div>
1679     </div>
1680     <div class="padding"></div>
1681
1682     <div class="entry">
1683       <div class="title">
1684         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
1685       </div>
1686       <div class="date">
1687          9th April 2014
1688       </div>
1689       <div class="body">
1690         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1691 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1692 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1693 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1694 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1695 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1696 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1697 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1698 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1699 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1700 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1701 have looked at a system called
1702 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1703 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1704
1705 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1706 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1707 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1708 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1709 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1710 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1711 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1712 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1713 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1714 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1715 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1716 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1717 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1718
1719 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1720 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1721 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1722 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1723 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1724 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1725 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1726 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1727 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1728 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1729 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1730 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1731 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1732 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1733 account.</p>
1734
1735 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1736 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1737 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1738 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1739 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1740 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1741 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1742
1743 <p><blockquote><pre>
1744 [s3c]
1745 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1746 backend-login: API-login
1747 backend-password: API-password
1748 fs-passphrase: local-password
1749 </pre></blockquote></p>
1750
1751 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1752 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1753 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1754 details and password to create it:</p>
1755
1756 <p><blockquote><pre>
1757 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1758 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1759   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1760 Enter backend login:
1761 Enter backend password:
1762 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1763 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1764 Enter encryption password:
1765 Confirm encryption password:
1766 Generating random encryption key...
1767 Creating metadata tables...
1768 Dumping metadata...
1769 ..objects..
1770 ..blocks..
1771 ..inodes..
1772 ..inode_blocks..
1773 ..symlink_targets..
1774 ..names..
1775 ..contents..
1776 ..ext_attributes..
1777 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1778 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1779 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1780
1781 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1782
1783 <p><blockquote><pre>
1784 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1785   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1786 Using 4 upload threads.
1787 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1788 Reading metadata...
1789 ..objects..
1790 ..blocks..
1791 ..inodes..
1792 ..inode_blocks..
1793 ..symlink_targets..
1794 ..names..
1795 ..contents..
1796 ..ext_attributes..
1797 Mounting filesystem...
1798 # df -h /s3ql
1799 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1800 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1801 #
1802 </pre></blockquote></p>
1803
1804 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1805 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1806 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1807 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1808 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1809 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1810
1811 <p><blockquote><pre>
1812 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1813 #
1814 </pre></blockquote></p>
1815
1816 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1817 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1818 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1819 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1820 file system:</p>
1821
1822 <p><blockquote><pre>
1823 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1824 Using cached metadata.
1825 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1826 Checking DB integrity...
1827 Creating temporary extra indices...
1828 Checking lost+found...
1829 Checking cached objects...
1830 Checking names (refcounts)...
1831 Checking contents (names)...
1832 Checking contents (inodes)...
1833 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1834 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1835 Checking objects (backend)...
1836 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1837 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1838 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1839 Checking objects (sizes)...
1840 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1841 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1842 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1843 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1844 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1845 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1846 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1847 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1848 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1849 Checking directory reachability...
1850 Checking unix conventions...
1851 Checking referential integrity...
1852 Dropping temporary indices...
1853 Backing up old metadata...
1854 Dumping metadata...
1855 ..objects..
1856 ..blocks..
1857 ..inodes..
1858 ..inode_blocks..
1859 ..symlink_targets..
1860 ..names..
1861 ..contents..
1862 ..ext_attributes..
1863 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1864 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1865 #
1866 </pre></blockquote></p>
1867
1868 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1869 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1870 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1871 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1872 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1873 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1874 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1875 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1876 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1877 working set.</p>
1878
1879 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1880 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1881 busy:</p>
1882
1883 <p><blockquote><pre>
1884 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1885   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1886 Using 8 upload threads.
1887 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1888 #
1889 </pre></blockquote></p>
1890
1891 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1892 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1893 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1894 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1895 s3qlctrl:
1896
1897 <p><blockquote><pre>
1898 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1899 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1900 #
1901 </pre></blockquote></p>
1902
1903 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1904 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1905 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1906 a report:</p>
1907
1908 <p><blockquote><pre>
1909 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1910 Directory entries:    9141
1911 Inodes:               9143
1912 Data blocks:          8851
1913 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1914 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1915 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1916 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1917 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1918 #
1919 </pre></blockquote></p>
1920
1921 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1922 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1923 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1924 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1925 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1926 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1927 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1928 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1929 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1930 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1931 best.</p>
1932
1933 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1934 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1935 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1936 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1937 poster is titled
1938 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1939 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1940 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1941 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1942 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1943
1944 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1945 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1946 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1947 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1948 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1949 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1950 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1951 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1952
1953 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1954 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1955 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1956 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1957 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1958 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1959 only read from it.</p>
1960
1961 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1962 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1963 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1964
1965       </div>
1966       <div class="tags">
1967
1968
1969         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1970
1971
1972       </div>
1973     </div>
1974     <div class="padding"></div>
1975
1976     <div class="entry">
1977       <div class="title">
1978         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
1979       </div>
1980       <div class="date">
1981         14th March 2014
1982       </div>
1983       <div class="body">
1984         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1985 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1986 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1987 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1988 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1989 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1990 release (0.2).</p>
1991
1992 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1993 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1994 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1995 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1996 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1997 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1998 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1999 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
2000 and build using
2001 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
2002 with a user with sudo access to become root:
2003
2004 <pre>
2005 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2006   freedom-maker
2007 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2008   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2009   u-boot-tools
2010 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2011 </pre>
2012
2013 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2014 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
2015 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
2016 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
2017 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
2018 kpartx call.</p>
2019
2020 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2021 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2022 the preseed values:</p>
2023
2024 <pre>
2025 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2026 </pre>
2027
2028 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
2029 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
2030 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
2031 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
2032 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
2033 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
2034
2035 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2036 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2037 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2038 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2039 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2040 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2041
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="tags">
2044
2045
2046         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2047
2048
2049       </div>
2050     </div>
2051     <div class="padding"></div>
2052
2053     <div class="entry">
2054       <div class="title">
2055         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
2056       </div>
2057       <div class="date">
2058         22nd February 2014
2059       </div>
2060       <div class="body">
2061         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
2062 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
2063 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
2064 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
2065 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
2066 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
2067 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
2068 proper home since then.</p>
2069
2070 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
2071 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
2072 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
2073 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
2074 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
2075
2076 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
2077 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
2078 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
2079 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
2080 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
2081 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
2082 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
2083 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
2084 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
2085
2086       </div>
2087       <div class="tags">
2088
2089
2090         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2091
2092
2093       </div>
2094     </div>
2095     <div class="padding"></div>
2096
2097     <div class="entry">
2098       <div class="title">
2099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
2100       </div>
2101       <div class="date">
2102          3rd February 2014
2103       </div>
2104       <div class="body">
2105         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
2106 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
2107 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
2108 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
2109 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
2110 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
2111 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
2112 <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>,
2113 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
2114
2115 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
2116 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
2117 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
2118 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
2119 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
2120 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
2121
2122 <p><blockquote><pre>
2123 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
2124 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
2125 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
2126 dhclient /dev/eth0
2127 </pre></blockquote></p>
2128
2129 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
2130 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
2131 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
2132
2133 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
2134 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
2135 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
2136 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
2137 side.</p>
2138
2139 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
2140 stuff:</p>
2141
2142 <p><blockquote><pre>
2143 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2144 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
2145 EOF
2146 apt-get update
2147 apt-get dist-upgrade
2148 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
2149     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
2150 update-alternatives --config runsystem
2151 </pre></blockquote></p>
2152
2153 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
2154 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
2155 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
2156 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
2157 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
2158 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
2159 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
2160 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
2161 ssh instead.
2162
2163 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
2164 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
2165 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
2166 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
2167 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
2168 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
2169
2170 <p><blockquote><pre>
2171 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2172 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2173 EOF
2174 </pre></blockquote></p>
2175
2176 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2177 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2178 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2179 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2180
2181 <p><blockquote><pre>
2182 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2183 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2184 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2185 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2186 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2187 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2188 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2189 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2190 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2191 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2192 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2193 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2194 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2195 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2196 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2197 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2198 #
2199 </pre></blockquote></p>
2200
2201 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2202 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2203 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2204 command line stuff.<p>
2205
2206       </div>
2207       <div class="tags">
2208
2209
2210         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2211
2212
2213       </div>
2214     </div>
2215     <div class="padding"></div>
2216
2217     <div class="entry">
2218       <div class="title">
2219         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2220       </div>
2221       <div class="date">
2222         14th January 2014
2223       </div>
2224       <div class="body">
2225         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2226 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2227 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2228 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2229 the source.  The company behind it provide
2230 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2231 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2232 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2233 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2234 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2235 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2236 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2237 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2238 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2239 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2240 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2241 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2242 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2243 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2244 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2245 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2246 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2247 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2248 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2249
2250 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2251
2252 <ul>
2253
2254   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2255   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2256   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2257
2258 </ul>
2259
2260 <p>You can
2261 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2262 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2263 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2264 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2265 include a test suite check.</p>
2266
2267       </div>
2268       <div class="tags">
2269
2270
2271         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2272
2273
2274       </div>
2275     </div>
2276     <div class="padding"></div>
2277
2278     <div class="entry">
2279       <div class="title">
2280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2281       </div>
2282       <div class="date">
2283         24th November 2013
2284       </div>
2285       <div class="body">
2286         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2287 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2288 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2289 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2290 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2291 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2292 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2293 is working on.  I checked the
2294 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2295 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2296 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2297 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2298 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2299 These are the release notes:</p>
2300
2301 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2302
2303 <ul>
2304
2305   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2306    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2307    up.</li>
2308
2309   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2310
2311   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2312    Matthias Klose.</li>
2313
2314   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2315    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2316
2317   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2318    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2319    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2320
2321 </ul>
2322
2323 <p>You can
2324 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2325 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2326 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2327 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2328 include a testsuite check.</p>
2329
2330       </div>
2331       <div class="tags">
2332
2333
2334         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2335
2336
2337       </div>
2338     </div>
2339     <div class="padding"></div>
2340
2341     <div class="entry">
2342       <div class="title">
2343         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
2344       </div>
2345       <div class="date">
2346          2nd November 2013
2347       </div>
2348       <div class="body">
2349         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2350 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2351 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2352 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2353 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2354
2355 <p><pre>
2356 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2357 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2358 # Provides:          rsyslog
2359 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2360 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2361 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2362 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2363 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2364 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2365 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2366 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2367 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2368 ### END INIT INFO
2369 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2370 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2371 </pre></p>
2372
2373 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2374 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2375 info/comments.</p>
2376
2377 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2378 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2379
2380 <p><pre>
2381 #!/bin/sh
2382
2383 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2384 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2385 # and status_of_proc is working.
2386 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2387
2388 #
2389 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2390
2391 #
2392 do_start()
2393 {
2394         # Return
2395         #   0 if daemon has been started
2396         #   1 if daemon was already running
2397         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2398         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2399                 || return 1
2400         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2401                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2402                 || return 2
2403         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2404         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2405         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2406 }
2407
2408 #
2409 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2410 #
2411 do_stop()
2412 {
2413         # Return
2414         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2415         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2416         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2417         #   other if a failure occurred
2418         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2419         RETVAL="$?"
2420         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2421         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2422         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2423         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2424         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2425         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2426         # sleep for some time.
2427         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2428         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2429         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2430         rm -f $PIDFILE
2431         return "$RETVAL"
2432 }
2433
2434 #
2435 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2436 #
2437 do_reload() {
2438         #
2439         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2440         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2441         # then implement that here.
2442         #
2443         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2444         return 0
2445 }
2446
2447 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2448 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2449 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2450 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2451     script="$1"
2452     shift
2453     . $script
2454 else
2455     exit 0
2456 fi
2457
2458 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2459 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2460
2461 # Exit if the package is not installed
2462 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2463
2464 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2465 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2466
2467 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2468 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2469
2470 case "$1" in
2471   start)
2472         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2473         do_start
2474         case "$?" in
2475                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2476                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2477         esac
2478         ;;
2479   stop)
2480         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2481         do_stop
2482         case "$?" in
2483                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2484                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2485         esac
2486         ;;
2487   status)
2488         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2489         ;;
2490   #reload|force-reload)
2491         #
2492         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2493         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2494         #
2495         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2496         #do_reload
2497         #log_end_msg $?
2498         #;;
2499   restart|force-reload)
2500         #
2501         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2502         # 'force-reload' alias
2503         #
2504         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2505         do_stop
2506         case "$?" in
2507           0|1)
2508                 do_start
2509                 case "$?" in
2510                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2511                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2512                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2513                 esac
2514                 ;;
2515           *)
2516                 # Failed to stop
2517                 log_end_msg 1
2518                 ;;
2519         esac
2520         ;;
2521   *)
2522         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2523         exit 3
2524         ;;
2525 esac
2526
2527 :
2528 </pre></p>
2529
2530 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2531 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2532 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2533 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2534
2535 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2536 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2537 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2538 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2539 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2540
2541       </div>
2542       <div class="tags">
2543
2544
2545         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2546
2547
2548       </div>
2549     </div>
2550     <div class="padding"></div>
2551
2552     <div class="entry">
2553       <div class="title">
2554         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
2555       </div>
2556       <div class="date">
2557          1st November 2013
2558       </div>
2559       <div class="body">
2560         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2561 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2562 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2563 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2564 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2565 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2566 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2567 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2568 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2569 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2570 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2571 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2572
2573 <p>The source is now available from
2574 <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>
2575
2576       </div>
2577       <div class="tags">
2578
2579
2580         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2581
2582
2583       </div>
2584     </div>
2585     <div class="padding"></div>
2586
2587     <div class="entry">
2588       <div class="title">
2589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
2590       </div>
2591       <div class="date">
2592         27th October 2013
2593       </div>
2594       <div class="body">
2595         <p>The
2596 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2597 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2598 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2599 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2600 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2601 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2602 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2603 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2604 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2605 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2606 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2607 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2608
2609 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2610 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2611 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2612 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2613 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2614 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2615 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2616 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2617 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2618 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2619 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2620 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2621 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2622 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2623 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2624 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2625 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2626 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2627 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2628 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2629 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2630 available from
2631 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2632 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2633
2634 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2635 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2636 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2637 list:</p>
2638
2639 <p><pre>
2640 #!/bin/sh
2641 set -e # Exit on first error
2642 rootdir="$1"
2643 cd "$rootdir"
2644 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2645 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2646 EOF
2647 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2648 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2649 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2650     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2651 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2652 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2653 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2654 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2655 </pre></p>
2656
2657 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2658 to build the image:</p>
2659
2660 <pre>
2661 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2662     --variant minbase \
2663     --arch armel \
2664     --distribution jessie \
2665     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2666     --image test.img \
2667     --size 600M \
2668     --bootsize 64M \
2669     --boottype vfat \
2670     --log-level debug \
2671     --verbose \
2672     --no-kernel \
2673     --no-extlinux \
2674     --root-password raspberry \
2675     --hostname raspberrypi \
2676     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2677     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2678     --package netbase \
2679     --package git-core \
2680     --package binutils \
2681     --package ca-certificates \
2682     --package wget \
2683     --package kmod
2684 </pre></p>
2685
2686 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2687 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2688 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2689 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2690 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2691 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2692 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2693
2694 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2695 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2696 build dependency list.</p>
2697
2698 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2699 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2700 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2701 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2702
2703       </div>
2704       <div class="tags">
2705
2706
2707         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2708
2709
2710       </div>
2711     </div>
2712     <div class="padding"></div>
2713
2714     <div class="entry">
2715       <div class="title">
2716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2717       </div>
2718       <div class="date">
2719         15th October 2013
2720       </div>
2721       <div class="body">
2722         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2723 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2724 these. :)</p>
2725
2726 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2727 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2728 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2729 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2730 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2731 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2732 hope you will to. :)</p>
2733
2734 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2735 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2736 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2737 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2738 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2739
2740 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2741 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2742 statement under the heading
2743 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2744 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2745 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2746 too.</p>
2747
2748       </div>
2749       <div class="tags">
2750
2751
2752         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2753
2754
2755       </div>
2756     </div>
2757     <div class="padding"></div>
2758
2759     <div class="entry">
2760       <div class="title">
2761         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2762       </div>
2763       <div class="date">
2764         27th September 2013
2765       </div>
2766       <div class="body">
2767         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2768 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2769 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2770 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2771
2772 <ul>
2773
2774 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2775 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2776
2777 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2778 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2779
2780 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2781 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2782 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2783 (Youtube)</li>
2784
2785 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2786 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2787
2788 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2789 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2790
2791 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2792 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2793 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2794
2795 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2796 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2797 (Youtube)</li>
2798
2799 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2800 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2801
2802 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2803 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2804
2805 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2806 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2807 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2808
2809 </ul>
2810
2811 <p>A larger list is available from
2812 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2813 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2814
2815 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2816 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2817 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2818 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2819 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2820 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2821 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2822 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2823 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2824 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2825 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2826
2827       </div>
2828       <div class="tags">
2829
2830
2831         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2832
2833
2834       </div>
2835     </div>
2836     <div class="padding"></div>
2837
2838     <div class="entry">
2839       <div class="title">
2840         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="date">
2843         10th September 2013
2844       </div>
2845       <div class="body">
2846         <p>I was introduced to the
2847 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2848 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2849 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2850 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2851 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2852 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2853 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2854 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2855
2856 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2857 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2858 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2859 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2860 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2861
2862 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2863 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2864 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2865 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2866 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2867 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2868 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2869 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2870 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2871 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2872 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2873 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2874 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2875 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2876 missing in Debian).</p>
2877
2878 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2879 scripts
2880 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2881 and a administrative web interface
2882 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2883 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2884 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2885 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2886 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2887 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2888 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2889 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2890 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2891 this is really working yet, see
2892 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2893 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2894 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2895 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2896 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2897 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2898 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2899
2900 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2901 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2902 at.</p>
2903
2904 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2905
2906 <ol>
2907
2908 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2909 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2910 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2911 to the Debian installer:<p>
2912 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2913
2914 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2915 install on.</li>
2916
2917 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2918 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2919
2920 </ol>
2921
2922 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2923
2924 <ol>
2925
2926 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2927 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2928 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2929 <pre>
2930 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2931 </pre></li>
2932 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2933 <pre>
2934 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2935    apt-key add -
2936 apt-get update
2937 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2938 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2939 </pre></li>
2940 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2941
2942 </ol>
2943
2944 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2945 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2946 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2947 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2948 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2949
2950 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2951 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2952 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2953 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2954
2955 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2956 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2957 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2958 irc.debian.org and the
2959 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2960 mailing list</a>.</p>
2961
2962 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2963 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2964 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2965 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2966 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2967 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2968
2969       </div>
2970       <div class="tags">
2971
2972
2973         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2974
2975
2976       </div>
2977     </div>
2978     <div class="padding"></div>
2979
2980     <div class="entry">
2981       <div class="title">
2982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="date">
2985         18th August 2013
2986       </div>
2987       <div class="body">
2988         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2989 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2990 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2991 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2992 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2993 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2994 currently on the disk.</p>
2995
2996 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2997 <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>
2998 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2999 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
3000 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
3001 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
3002 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
3003 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
3004 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
3005 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
3006 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
3007 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
3008 the broken disks.</p>
3009
3010       </div>
3011       <div class="tags">
3012
3013
3014         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3015
3016
3017       </div>
3018     </div>
3019     <div class="padding"></div>
3020
3021     <div class="entry">
3022       <div class="title">
3023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
3024       </div>
3025       <div class="date">
3026         17th July 2013
3027       </div>
3028       <div class="body">
3029         <p>Today I switched to
3030 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
3031 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
3032 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
3033 <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
3034 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
3035 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
3036 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
3037 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
3038 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
3039 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
3040 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
3041 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
3042 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
3043 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
3044 station from now on.</p>
3045
3046 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
3047 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
3048 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
3049 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
3050 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
3051 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
3052 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
3053 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
3054 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
3055 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
3056 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
3057 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
3058
3059 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
3060 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
3061 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
3062 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
3063 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
3064 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
3065 parameters are tuned:</p>
3066
3067 <ul>
3068
3069 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
3070     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
3071
3072 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
3073     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
3074     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
3075
3076 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
3077     systems.</li>
3078
3079 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
3080     /etc/fstab.</li>
3081
3082 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
3083
3084 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
3085     cron.daily).</li>
3086
3087 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
3088     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
3089
3090 </ul>
3091
3092 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
3093 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
3094 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
3095 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
3096 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
3097 from getting the data on the disk (see
3098 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
3099 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
3100 right thing to do.</p>
3101
3102 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
3103 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
3104 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
3105
3106 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
3107 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
3108 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
3109 instead of during my work.</p>
3110
3111 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
3112 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
3113
3114 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
3115 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
3116 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
3117
3118 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
3119 there.</p>
3120
3121 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
3122 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
3123 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
3124 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
3125 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
3126 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
3127 back.</p>
3128
3129       </div>
3130       <div class="tags">
3131
3132
3133         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3134
3135
3136       </div>
3137     </div>
3138     <div class="padding"></div>
3139
3140     <div class="entry">
3141       <div class="title">
3142         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
3143       </div>
3144       <div class="date">
3145         10th July 2013
3146       </div>
3147       <div class="body">
3148         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
3149 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
3150 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
3151 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
3152 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
3153 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
3154 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
3155 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
3156
3157 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
3158 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
3159 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
3160 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
3161 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
3162 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
3163 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
3164 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
3165 lock up when I download a new
3166 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
3167 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
3168 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
3169
3170 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3171 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3172 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3173 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3174 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3175 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3176
3177 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3178 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3179 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3180 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3181 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3182 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3183
3184 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3185 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3186 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3187 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3188 exist).</p>
3189
3190       </div>
3191       <div class="tags">
3192
3193
3194         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3195
3196
3197       </div>
3198     </div>
3199     <div class="padding"></div>
3200
3201     <div class="entry">
3202       <div class="title">
3203         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
3204       </div>
3205       <div class="date">
3206          9th July 2013
3207       </div>
3208       <div class="body">
3209         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3210 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3211 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3212 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3213 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3214 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3215 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3216
3217 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3218 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3219 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3220 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3221 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3222
3223       </div>
3224       <div class="tags">
3225
3226
3227         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
3228
3229
3230       </div>
3231     </div>
3232     <div class="padding"></div>
3233
3234     <div class="entry">
3235       <div class="title">
3236         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
3237       </div>
3238       <div class="date">
3239          5th July 2013
3240       </div>
3241       <div class="body">
3242         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3243 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3244 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3245 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3246 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3247 ended up picking a
3248 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3249 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3250 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3251 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3252 on that below.</p>
3253
3254 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3255 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3256 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3257 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3258 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3259 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3260 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3261 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3262 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3263
3264 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3265 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3266 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3267 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3268 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3269 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3270 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3271
3272 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3273 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3274
3275 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3276 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3277 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3278 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3279 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3280 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3281 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3282 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3283 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3284 kernel developers as
3285 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3286 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3287 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3288 Lenovo forums, both for
3289 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3290 2012-11-10</a> and for
3291 <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
3292 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3293 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3294 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3295 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3296 There is even a
3297 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3298 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3299 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3300
3301 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3302 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3303 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3304 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3305 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3306 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3307 fixed. :)</p>
3308
3309       </div>
3310       <div class="tags">
3311
3312
3313         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3314
3315
3316       </div>
3317     </div>
3318     <div class="padding"></div>
3319
3320     <div class="entry">
3321       <div class="title">
3322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
3323       </div>
3324       <div class="date">
3325          4th July 2013
3326       </div>
3327       <div class="body">
3328         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3329 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3330 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3331 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3332 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3333 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3334 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3335 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3336 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3337
3338 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3339 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3340 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3341 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3342 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3343 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3344 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3345
3346 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3347 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3348 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3349 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3350 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3351 new laptop now. :)</p>
3352
3353 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3354
3355       </div>
3356       <div class="tags">
3357
3358
3359         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3360
3361
3362       </div>
3363     </div>
3364     <div class="padding"></div>
3365
3366     <div class="entry">
3367       <div class="title">
3368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
3369       </div>
3370       <div class="date">
3371         25th June 2013
3372       </div>
3373       <div class="body">
3374         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3375 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3376 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3377 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3378 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3379 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3380 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3381 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3382 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3383 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3384 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3385
3386 <p><pre>
3387 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3388 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3389 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3390 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3391 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3392 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3393 firmware-ipw2x00
3394 firmware-ipw2x00
3395 Preconfiguring packages ...
3396 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3397 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3398 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3399 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3400 #
3401 </pre></p>
3402
3403 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3404 printed instead:</p>
3405
3406 <p><pre>
3407 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3408 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3409 #
3410 </pre></p>
3411
3412 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3413 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3414
3415 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3416 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3417 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3418 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3419 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3420 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3421 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3422 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3423 machine.</p>
3424
3425 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3426 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3427 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3428 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3429 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3430 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3431
3432       </div>
3433       <div class="tags">
3434
3435
3436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3437
3438
3439       </div>
3440     </div>
3441     <div class="padding"></div>
3442
3443     <div class="entry">
3444       <div class="title">
3445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3446       </div>
3447       <div class="date">
3448         11th June 2013
3449       </div>
3450       <div class="body">
3451         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3452 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3453 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3454 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3455 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3456 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3457 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3458 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3459 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3460 i915 driver used by the
3461 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3462 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3463
3464 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3465 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3466 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3467 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3468 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3469
3470 <pre>
3471 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3472 update-initramfs -u -k all
3473 </pre>
3474
3475 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3476 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3477 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3478 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3479 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3480 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3481 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3482 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3483 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3484 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3485 number.</p>
3486
3487 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3488 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3489
3490 <p><pre>
3491 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3492     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3493     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3494  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3495  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3496     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3497  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3498     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3499  Latency: 0
3500  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3501  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3502  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3503  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3504  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3505  Capabilities: <access denied>
3506  Kernel driver in use: i915
3507 </pre></p>
3508
3509 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3510
3511 <p><pre>
3512 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3513        ...
3514         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3515         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3516        ...
3517 }
3518 </pre></p>
3519
3520 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3521 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3522 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3523 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3524 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3525 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3526 yet shown up in
3527 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3528 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3529 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3530 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3531 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3532 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3533
3534 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3535 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3536 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3537 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3538 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3539 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3540 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3541 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3542 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3543 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3544 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3545 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3546
3547 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3548 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3549 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3550 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3551 backlight.</p>
3552
3553       </div>
3554       <div class="tags">
3555
3556
3557         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3558
3559
3560       </div>
3561     </div>
3562     <div class="padding"></div>
3563
3564     <div class="entry">
3565       <div class="title">
3566         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
3567       </div>
3568       <div class="date">
3569         27th May 2013
3570       </div>
3571       <div class="body">
3572         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3573 <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
3574 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3575 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3576 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3577 and Windows 8.</p>
3578
3579 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3580 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3581 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3582 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3583 enough to tell.</p>
3584
3585 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3586 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3587 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3588 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3589 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3590 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3591 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3592 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3593 to follow.</p>
3594
3595 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3596 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3597 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3598 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3599 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3600 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3601 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3602 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3603
3604 <p>I've updated the
3605 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3606 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3607 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3608 machine.</p>
3609
3610 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3611 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3612
3613       </div>
3614       <div class="tags">
3615
3616
3617         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3618
3619
3620       </div>
3621     </div>
3622     <div class="padding"></div>
3623
3624     <div class="entry">
3625       <div class="title">
3626         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
3627       </div>
3628       <div class="date">
3629         25th May 2013
3630       </div>
3631       <div class="body">
3632         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3633 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3634 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3635 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3636 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3637 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3638
3639 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3640 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3641 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3642 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3643 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3644 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3645 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3646 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3647 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3648 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3649
3650 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3651 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3652 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3653 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3654 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3655 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3656
3657 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3658 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3659 on new Laptops?</p>
3660
3661       </div>
3662       <div class="tags">
3663
3664
3665         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3666
3667
3668       </div>
3669     </div>
3670     <div class="padding"></div>
3671
3672     <div class="entry">
3673       <div class="title">
3674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
3675       </div>
3676       <div class="date">
3677         17th May 2013
3678       </div>
3679       <div class="body">
3680         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3681 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3682 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3683 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3684 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3685 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3686 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3687 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3688 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3689 donate some money</a>.
3690
3691 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3692 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3693 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3694 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3695 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3696
3697 <p>The script,
3698 <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/>
3699 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3700 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3701 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3702
3703 <ol>
3704
3705 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3706 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3707 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3708     our configuration.</li>
3709 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3710     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3711     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3712     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3713 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3714     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3715 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3716
3717 </ol>
3718
3719 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3720 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3721 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3722 the needed packages.</p>
3723
3724 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3725 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3726 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3727 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3728 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3729 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3730
3731 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3732 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3733 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3734
3735 <p><pre>
3736 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3737 DESKTOP="lxde"
3738 </pre></p>
3739
3740 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3741 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3742 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3743 boot.</p>
3744
3745       </div>
3746       <div class="tags">
3747
3748
3749         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3750
3751
3752       </div>
3753     </div>
3754     <div class="padding"></div>
3755
3756     <div class="entry">
3757       <div class="title">
3758         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
3759       </div>
3760       <div class="date">
3761         11th May 2013
3762       </div>
3763       <div class="body">
3764         <P>In January,
3765 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3766 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3767 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3768 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3769 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3770 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3771 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3772 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3773 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3774 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3775 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3776 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3777
3778 <p><table>
3779 <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>
3780 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3781 <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>
3782 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3783 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3784 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3785 <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>
3786 <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>
3787 <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>
3788 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3789 </table></p>
3790
3791 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3792 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3793 available in experimental.</p>
3794
3795 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3796 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3797 for LEGO designers.</p>
3798
3799       </div>
3800       <div class="tags">
3801
3802
3803         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
3804
3805
3806       </div>
3807     </div>
3808     <div class="padding"></div>
3809
3810     <div class="entry">
3811       <div class="title">
3812         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
3813       </div>
3814       <div class="date">
3815          5th May 2013
3816       </div>
3817       <div class="body">
3818         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3819 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3820 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3821 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3822 soon.</p>
3823
3824 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3825 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3826 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3827 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3828 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3829 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3830 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3831 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3832 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3833 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3834 Edu.</a>
3835
3836 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3837 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3838 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3839 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3840 follow.<p>
3841
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="tags">
3844
3845
3846         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3847
3848
3849       </div>
3850     </div>
3851     <div class="padding"></div>
3852
3853     <div class="entry">
3854       <div class="title">
3855         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
3856       </div>
3857       <div class="date">
3858          3rd April 2013
3859       </div>
3860       <div class="body">
3861         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3862 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3863 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3864 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3865
3866 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3867 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3868 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3869 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3870 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3871 BTS. :)</p>
3872
3873       </div>
3874       <div class="tags">
3875
3876
3877         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3878
3879
3880       </div>
3881     </div>
3882     <div class="padding"></div>
3883
3884     <div class="entry">
3885       <div class="title">
3886         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3887       </div>
3888       <div class="date">
3889          2nd February 2013
3890       </div>
3891       <div class="body">
3892         <p>My
3893 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3894 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3895 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3896 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3897 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3898 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3899 version too.</p>
3900
3901 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3902 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3903 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3904 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3905 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3906 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3907 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3908 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3909
3910 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3911 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3912 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3913 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3914 it. :)</p>
3915
3916 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3917 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3918 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3919
3920       </div>
3921       <div class="tags">
3922
3923
3924         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3925
3926
3927       </div>
3928     </div>
3929     <div class="padding"></div>
3930
3931     <div class="entry">
3932       <div class="title">
3933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3934       </div>
3935       <div class="date">
3936         22nd January 2013
3937       </div>
3938       <div class="body">
3939         <p>Yesterday, I
3940 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3941 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3942 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3943 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3944 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3945 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3946 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3947 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3948 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3949 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3950 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3951 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3952 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3953
3954 <pre>
3955 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3956 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3957 </pre>
3958
3959 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3960 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3961 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3962 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3963
3964 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3965 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3966 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3967 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3968 word.</p>
3969
3970 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3971 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3972 process.</p>
3973
3974 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3975 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3976
3977       </div>
3978       <div class="tags">
3979
3980
3981         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3982
3983
3984       </div>
3985     </div>
3986     <div class="padding"></div>
3987
3988     <div class="entry">
3989       <div class="title">
3990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
3991       </div>
3992       <div class="date">
3993         21st January 2013
3994       </div>
3995       <div class="body">
3996         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3997 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3998 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3999 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
4000 it, fetch the
4001 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
4002 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
4003 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
4004 autostart script.</p>
4005
4006 <p>The design is simple:</p>
4007
4008 <ul>
4009
4010 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
4011 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
4012
4013 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
4014 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
4015 initially did.</li>
4016
4017 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
4018 the APT database, a database
4019 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
4020 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
4021
4022 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
4023 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
4024 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
4025 package or packages.</li>
4026
4027 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
4028 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
4029
4030 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
4031 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
4032
4033 </ul>
4034
4035 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
4036 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
4037 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
4038 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
4039
4040 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
4041 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
4042 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
4043 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
4044 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
4045
4046 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
4047 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
4048 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
4049 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
4050 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
4051 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
4052 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
4053 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
4054
4055 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
4056 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
4057 '<tt>svn checkout
4058 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
4059 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
4060 devscripts package.</p>
4061
4062 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
4063 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
4064 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
4065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
4066 instructions</a> for details.</p>
4067
4068       </div>
4069       <div class="tags">
4070
4071
4072         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4073
4074
4075       </div>
4076     </div>
4077     <div class="padding"></div>
4078
4079     <div class="entry">
4080       <div class="title">
4081         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
4082       </div>
4083       <div class="date">
4084         19th January 2013
4085       </div>
4086       <div class="body">
4087         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
4088 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
4089 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
4090 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
4091 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
4092 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
4093 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
4094 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
4095 not a durable solution.
4096
4097 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
4098 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
4099
4100 <ul>
4101
4102 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
4103   than A4).</li>
4104 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
4105 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
4106 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
4107 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
4108 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
4109 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
4110 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
4111 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
4112 size).</li>
4113 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
4114   X.org packages.</li>
4115 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
4116   the time).
4117
4118 </ul>
4119
4120 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
4121 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
4122 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
4123 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
4124 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
4125 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
4126 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
4127 still be useful.</p>
4128
4129 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
4130 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
4131 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
4132 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
4133 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
4134 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
4135
4136       </div>
4137       <div class="tags">
4138
4139
4140         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4141
4142
4143       </div>
4144     </div>
4145     <div class="padding"></div>
4146
4147     <div class="entry">
4148       <div class="title">
4149         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
4150       </div>
4151       <div class="date">
4152         18th January 2013
4153       </div>
4154       <div class="body">
4155         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
4156 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
4157 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
4158 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
4159 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
4160 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
4161 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
4162
4163 <pre>
4164 #!/usr/bin/python
4165 import sys
4166 import apt
4167 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4168     cache = apt.Cache()
4169     cache.open(None)
4170     thepkgs = []
4171     for pkg in cache:
4172         version = pkg.candidate
4173         if version is None:
4174             version = pkg.installed
4175         if version is None:
4176             continue
4177         record = version.record
4178         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4179             continue
4180         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4181         for t in mime_types:
4182             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4183             if t == mimetype:
4184                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4185     return thepkgs
4186 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4187 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4188     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4189 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4190 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4191     print "  %s" %pkg
4192 </pre>
4193
4194 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4195
4196 <pre>
4197 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4198 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4199   gecko-mediaplayer
4200 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4201 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4202   browser-plugin-gnash
4203 %
4204 </pre>
4205
4206 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4207 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4208 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4209 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4210
4211 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4212 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4213 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4214 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4215 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4216 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4217
4218       </div>
4219       <div class="tags">
4220
4221
4222         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4223
4224
4225       </div>
4226     </div>
4227     <div class="padding"></div>
4228
4229     <div class="entry">
4230       <div class="title">
4231         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
4232       </div>
4233       <div class="date">
4234         16th January 2013
4235       </div>
4236       <div class="body">
4237         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4238 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4239 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4240 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4241 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4242 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4243 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4244 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4245
4246 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4247 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4248 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4249 can be found on the
4250 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4251 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4252 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4253 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4254 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4255
4256 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4257
4258 <pre>
4259   count MIME type
4260   ----- -----------------------
4261      32 text/plain
4262      30 audio/mpeg
4263      29 image/png
4264      28 image/jpeg
4265      27 application/ogg
4266      26 audio/x-mp3
4267      25 image/tiff
4268      25 image/gif
4269      22 image/bmp
4270      22 audio/x-wav
4271      20 audio/x-flac
4272      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4273      18 video/x-ms-asf
4274      18 audio/x-musepack
4275      18 audio/x-mpeg
4276      18 application/x-ogg
4277      17 video/mpeg
4278      17 audio/x-scpls
4279      17 audio/ogg
4280      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4281 </pre>
4282
4283 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4284
4285 <pre>
4286   count MIME type
4287   ----- -----------------------
4288      33 text/plain
4289      32 image/png
4290      32 image/jpeg
4291      29 audio/mpeg
4292      27 image/gif
4293      26 image/tiff
4294      26 application/ogg
4295      25 audio/x-mp3
4296      22 image/bmp
4297      21 audio/x-wav
4298      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4299      19 audio/x-mpeg
4300      18 video/mpeg
4301      18 audio/x-scpls
4302      18 audio/x-flac
4303      18 application/x-ogg
4304      17 video/x-ms-asf
4305      17 text/html
4306      17 audio/x-musepack
4307      16 image/x-xbitmap
4308 </pre>
4309
4310 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4311
4312 <pre>
4313   count MIME type
4314   ----- -----------------------
4315      31 text/plain
4316      31 image/png
4317      31 image/jpeg
4318      29 audio/mpeg
4319      28 application/ogg
4320      27 image/gif
4321      26 image/tiff
4322      26 audio/x-mp3
4323      23 audio/x-wav
4324      22 image/bmp
4325      21 audio/x-flac
4326      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4327      19 audio/x-mpeg
4328      18 video/x-ms-asf
4329      18 video/mpeg
4330      18 audio/x-scpls
4331      18 application/x-ogg
4332      17 audio/x-musepack
4333      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4334      16 video/x-msvideo
4335 </pre>
4336
4337 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4338 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4339 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4340 issues.</p>
4341
4342 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4343 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4344
4345       </div>
4346       <div class="tags">
4347
4348
4349         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4350
4351
4352       </div>
4353     </div>
4354     <div class="padding"></div>
4355
4356     <div class="entry">
4357       <div class="title">
4358         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
4359       </div>
4360       <div class="date">
4361         15th January 2013
4362       </div>
4363       <div class="body">
4364         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4365 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4366 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4367 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4368 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4369 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4370 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4371 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4372 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4373 packages.</p>
4374
4375 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4376 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4377 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4378 modalias.</p>
4379
4380 <p><blockquote>
4381 Package: package-name
4382 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4383 </blockquote></p>
4384
4385 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4386 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4387
4388 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4389 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4390
4391 <p><blockquote>
4392 Package: cheese
4393 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4394 </blockquote></p>
4395
4396 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4397 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4398
4399 <p><blockquote>
4400 Package: pcmciautils
4401 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4402 </blockquote></p>
4403
4404 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4405 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4406
4407 <p><blockquote>
4408 Package: colorhug-client
4409 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4410 </blockquote></p>
4411
4412 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4413 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4414 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4415
4416 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4417 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4418 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4419 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4420 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4421 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4422 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4423 Raring.</p>
4424
4425 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4426 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4427 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4428 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4429 try the
4430 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4431 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4432 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4433 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4434
4435 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4436 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4437
4438 <p><blockquote>
4439 % ./hw-support-lookup
4440 <br>yubikey-personalization
4441 <br>%
4442 </blockquote></p>
4443
4444 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4445 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4446
4447 <p><blockquote>
4448 % ./hw-support-lookup
4449 <br>pcmciautils
4450 <br>%
4451 </blockquote></p>
4452
4453 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4454 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4455 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4456
4457 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4458 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4459 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4460 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4461 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4462 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4463 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4464 see if it work.</p>
4465
4466 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4467 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4468 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4469 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4470
4471       </div>
4472       <div class="tags">
4473
4474
4475         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4476
4477
4478       </div>
4479     </div>
4480     <div class="padding"></div>
4481
4482     <div class="entry">
4483       <div class="title">
4484         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
4485       </div>
4486       <div class="date">
4487         14th January 2013
4488       </div>
4489       <div class="body">
4490         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4491 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4492 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4493 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4494 in
4495 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4496 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4497
4498 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4499
4500 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4501 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4502 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4503 &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;,
4504 &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
4505 &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;.
4506
4507 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4508 this shell script:</p>
4509
4510 <pre>
4511 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4512 </pre>
4513
4514 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4515 using modinfo:</p>
4516
4517 <pre>
4518 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4519 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4520 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4521 %
4522 </pre>
4523
4524 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4525
4526 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4527 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4528
4529 <p><blockquote>
4530 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4531 </blockquote></p>
4532
4533 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4534
4535 <pre>
4536  v   00008086  (vendor)
4537  d   00002770  (device)
4538  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4539  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4540  bc  06        (bus class)
4541  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4542  i   00        (interface)
4543 </pre>
4544
4545 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4546 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4547 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4548 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4549
4550 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4551 means.</p>
4552
4553 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4554
4555 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4556 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4557
4558 <p><blockquote>
4559 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4560 </blockquote></p>
4561
4562 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4563
4564 <pre>
4565  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4566  p    0001  (device product)
4567  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4568  dc     09  (device class)
4569  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4570  dp     00  (device protocol)
4571  ic     09  (interface class)
4572  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4573  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4574 </pre>
4575
4576 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4577 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4578 these alias entries show up:</p>
4579
4580 <p><blockquote>
4581 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4582 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4583 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4584 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4585 </blockquote></p>
4586
4587 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4588 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4589 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4590
4591 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4592
4593 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4594 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4595
4596 <p><blockquote>
4597 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4598 </blockquote></p>
4599
4600 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4601
4602 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4603
4604 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4605 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4606 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4607
4608 <p><blockquote>
4609 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4610 </blockquote></p>
4611
4612 <p>The values present are</p>
4613
4614 <pre>
4615  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4616  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4617  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4618  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4619  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4620  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4621  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4622  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4623  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4624  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4625  ct   10             (chassis type)
4626  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4627 </pre>
4628
4629 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4630 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4631
4632 <pre>
4633   3 Desktop
4634   4 Low Profile Desktop
4635   5 Pizza Box
4636   6 Mini Tower
4637   7 Tower
4638   8 Portable
4639   9 Laptop
4640  10 Notebook
4641  11 Hand Held
4642  12 Docking Station
4643  13 All In One
4644  14 Sub Notebook
4645  15 Space-saving
4646  16 Lunch Box
4647  17 Main Server Chassis
4648  18 Expansion Chassis
4649  19 Sub Chassis
4650  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4651  21 Peripheral Chassis
4652  22 RAID Chassis
4653  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4654  24 Sealed-case PC
4655  25 Multi-system
4656  26 CompactPCI
4657  27 AdvancedTCA
4658  28 Blade
4659  29 Blade Enclosing
4660 </pre>
4661
4662 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4663 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4664 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4665
4666 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4667
4668 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4669 test machine:</p>
4670
4671 <p><blockquote>
4672 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4673 </blockquote></p>
4674
4675 <p>The values present are</p>
4676
4677 <pre>
4678   ty  01  (type)
4679   pr  00  (prototype)
4680   id  00  (id)
4681   ex  00  (extra)
4682 </pre>
4683
4684 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4685 the valid values are.</p>
4686
4687 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4688
4689 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4690 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4691 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4692 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4693 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4694 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4695 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4696
4697 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4698
4699 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4700 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4701
4702 <pre>
4703   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4704     echo "$id" ; \
4705     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4706   done
4707 </pre>
4708
4709 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4710 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4711
4712 <pre>
4713   acpi:ACPI0003:
4714     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4715   acpi:device:
4716   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4717   acpi:IBM0068:
4718     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4719     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4720     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4721     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4722   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4723     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4724     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4725     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4726   [...]
4727 </pre>
4728
4729 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4730 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4731 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4732 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4733
4734 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4735 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4736 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4737
4738       </div>
4739       <div class="tags">
4740
4741
4742         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4743
4744
4745       </div>
4746     </div>
4747     <div class="padding"></div>
4748
4749     <div class="entry">
4750       <div class="title">
4751         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
4752       </div>
4753       <div class="date">
4754         10th January 2013
4755       </div>
4756       <div class="body">
4757         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4758 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4759 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4760 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4761 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4762 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4763 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4764 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4765 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4766 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4767 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4768 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4769 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4770 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4771 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4772 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4773 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4774 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4775
4776       </div>
4777       <div class="tags">
4778
4779
4780         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4781
4782
4783       </div>
4784     </div>
4785     <div class="padding"></div>
4786
4787     <div class="entry">
4788       <div class="title">
4789         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
4790       </div>
4791       <div class="date">
4792          9th January 2013
4793       </div>
4794       <div class="body">
4795         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4796 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4797 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4798 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4799 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4800 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4801 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4802 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4803 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4804 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4805 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4806
4807 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4808 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4809 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4810 simple:
4811
4812 <ul>
4813
4814 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4815   starting when a user log in.</li>
4816
4817 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4818   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4819
4820 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4821   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4822   packages.</li>
4823
4824 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4825   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4826
4827 </ul>
4828
4829 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4830 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4831 discover database to find packages and
4832 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4833 packages.</p>
4834
4835 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4836 draft package is now checked into
4837 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4838 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4839 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4840 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4841 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4842 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4843 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4844 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4845 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4846 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4847 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4848 because of the freeze).</p>
4849
4850 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4851 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4852 inserted):</p>
4853
4854 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4855
4856 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4857 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4858 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4859
4860 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4861 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4862 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4863 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4864 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4865 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4866 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4867
4868 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4869 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4870 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4871 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4872 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4873 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4874 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4875 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4876 not be installed?</p>
4877
4878 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4879 please send me an email. :)</p>
4880
4881       </div>
4882       <div class="tags">
4883
4884
4885         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4886
4887
4888       </div>
4889     </div>
4890     <div class="padding"></div>
4891
4892     <div class="entry">
4893       <div class="title">
4894         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
4895       </div>
4896       <div class="date">
4897          2nd January 2013
4898       </div>
4899       <div class="body">
4900         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4901 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4902 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4903 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4904 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4905 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4906 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4907 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4908 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4909 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4910
4911 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4912 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4913 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4914
4915       </div>
4916       <div class="tags">
4917
4918
4919         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4920
4921
4922       </div>
4923     </div>
4924     <div class="padding"></div>
4925
4926     <div class="entry">
4927       <div class="title">
4928         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
4929       </div>
4930       <div class="date">
4931         25th December 2012
4932       </div>
4933       <div class="body">
4934         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4935 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4936
4937 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4938 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4939 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4940 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4941 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4942 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4943 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4944 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4945 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4946 name.</p>
4947
4948 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4949 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4950 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4951
4952 <blockquote><pre>
4953 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4954 cd bitcoin
4955 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4956 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4957 </pre></blockquote>
4958
4959 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4960 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4961 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4962 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4963 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4964 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4965 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4966 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4967 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4968
4969 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4970 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4971 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4972
4973       </div>
4974       <div class="tags">
4975
4976
4977         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4978
4979
4980       </div>
4981     </div>
4982     <div class="padding"></div>
4983
4984     <div class="entry">
4985       <div class="title">
4986         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="date">
4989         21st December 2012
4990       </div>
4991       <div class="body">
4992         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4993 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4994 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4995 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4996 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4997 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4998 is now maintained by a
4999 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
5000 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
5001 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
5002 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
5003 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
5004 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
5005 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
5006 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
5007 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
5008 Corallo in a
5009 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
5010 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
5011 Debian package.</p>
5012
5013 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
5014 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
5015 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
5016 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
5017 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
5018 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
5019 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
5020 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
5021 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
5022 new version to unstable.
5023
5024 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
5025 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
5026 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
5027 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
5028 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
5029 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
5030 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
5031 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
5032 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
5033 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
5034 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
5035 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
5036 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
5037 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
5038 have not tested them.</p>
5039
5040 <p>My
5041 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
5042 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
5043 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
5044 years ago, as can be
5045 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
5046 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
5047 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
5048 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
5049 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
5050 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
5051 the same address as last time,
5052 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5053
5054       </div>
5055       <div class="tags">
5056
5057
5058         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5059
5060
5061       </div>
5062     </div>
5063     <div class="padding"></div>
5064
5065     <div class="entry">
5066       <div class="title">
5067         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5068       </div>
5069       <div class="date">
5070          7th September 2012
5071       </div>
5072       <div class="body">
5073         <p>As I
5074 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
5075 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
5076 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
5077 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
5078 repository for the project</a>.</p>
5079
5080 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
5081 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
5082 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
5083 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
5084
5085 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
5086 PostScript formats at
5087 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
5088 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
5089
5090       </div>
5091       <div class="tags">
5092
5093
5094         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
5095
5096
5097       </div>
5098     </div>
5099     <div class="padding"></div>
5100
5101     <div class="entry">
5102       <div class="title">
5103         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
5104       </div>
5105       <div class="date">
5106         16th August 2012
5107       </div>
5108       <div class="body">
5109         <p>I dag fyller
5110 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
5111 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
5112 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
5113
5114       </div>
5115       <div class="tags">
5116
5117
5118         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
5119
5120
5121       </div>
5122     </div>
5123     <div class="padding"></div>
5124
5125     <div class="entry">
5126       <div class="title">
5127         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5128       </div>
5129       <div class="date">
5130         24th June 2012
5131       </div>
5132       <div class="body">
5133         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
5134 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
5135 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
5136 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
5137 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
5138 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
5139 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
5140 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
5141 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
5142 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
5143 missing in my book.</p>
5144
5145 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
5146 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
5147 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
5148 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
5149 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
5150 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
5151 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
5152
5153       </div>
5154       <div class="tags">
5155
5156
5157         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
5158
5159
5160       </div>
5161     </div>
5162     <div class="padding"></div>
5163
5164     <div class="entry">
5165       <div class="title">
5166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
5167       </div>
5168       <div class="date">
5169         21st November 2011
5170       </div>
5171       <div class="body">
5172         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5173 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5174 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5175 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5176 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5177 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5178 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5179 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5180 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5181 the tools to do so.</p>
5182
5183 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5184 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5185 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5186 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5187
5188 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5189 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5190 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5191 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5192 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5193 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5194 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5195 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5196
5197 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5198 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5199 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5200
5201 <p><pre>
5202 #!/usr/bin/perl
5203 use strict;
5204 use warnings;
5205 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5206 BEGIN {
5207     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5208     my %rhelmodules = (
5209         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5210         );
5211     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5212         eval "use $module;";
5213         if ($@) {
5214             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5215             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5216             eval "use $module;";
5217         }
5218     }
5219 }
5220 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5221
5222 upgrade_dell();
5223
5224 exit 0;
5225
5226 sub run_firmware_script {
5227     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5228     unless ($script) {
5229         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5230         exit 1
5231     }
5232     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5233
5234     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5235         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5236     } else {
5237         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5238     }
5239 }
5240
5241 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5242     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5243     # Run firmware packages
5244     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5245         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5246         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5247         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5248             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5249             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5250         }
5251         closedir $dh;
5252     }
5253 }
5254
5255 sub download {
5256     my $url = shift;
5257     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5258     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5259 }
5260
5261 sub upgrade_dell {
5262     my @dirs;
5263     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5264     chomp $product;
5265
5266     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5267
5268         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5269         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5270
5271         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5272             CLEANUP => 1
5273             );
5274         chdir($tmpdir);
5275         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5276         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5277         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5278         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5279         my $fwopts = "-q";
5280         if (@paths) {
5281             for my $url (@paths) {
5282                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5283             }
5284             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5285         } else {
5286             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5287             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5288         }
5289         chdir('/');
5290     } else {
5291         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5292         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5293     }
5294 }
5295
5296 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5297     my $path = shift;
5298     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5299     download($url);
5300 }
5301
5302 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5303 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5304 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5305 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5306     my $filename = shift;
5307
5308     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5309     chomp $product;
5310     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5311
5312     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5313
5314     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5315     my @paths;
5316     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5317         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5318         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5319         my $oscode;
5320         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5321             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5322         } else {
5323             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5324         }
5325         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5326         {
5327             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5328         }
5329     }
5330     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5331         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5332
5333         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5334         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5335
5336         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5337         for my $path (@paths) {
5338             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5339                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5340             }
5341         }
5342     }
5343     return @paths;
5344 }
5345 </pre>
5346
5347 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5348 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5349 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5350 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5351 outdated.</p>
5352
5353       </div>
5354       <div class="tags">
5355
5356
5357         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5358
5359
5360       </div>
5361     </div>
5362     <div class="padding"></div>
5363
5364     <div class="entry">
5365       <div class="title">
5366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
5367       </div>
5368       <div class="date">
5369          4th August 2011
5370       </div>
5371       <div class="body">
5372         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5373 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5374 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5375 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5376 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5377 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5378 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5379 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5380 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5381
5382 <p><blockquote>
5383 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5384 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5385 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5386 </blockquote></p>
5387
5388 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5389 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5390 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5391 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5392 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5393 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5394 hard to explain.</p>
5395
5396 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5397 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5398 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5399 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5400 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5401 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5402 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5403 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5404 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5405 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5406 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5407 mode).</p>
5408
5409 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5410 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5411 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5412 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5413 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5414 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5415 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5416 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5417 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5418
5419 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5420 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5421 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5422 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5423 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5424 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5425 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5426 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5427
5428 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5429 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5430 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5431
5432       </div>
5433       <div class="tags">
5434
5435
5436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5437
5438
5439       </div>
5440     </div>
5441     <div class="padding"></div>
5442
5443     <div class="entry">
5444       <div class="title">
5445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
5446       </div>
5447       <div class="date">
5448         30th July 2011
5449       </div>
5450       <div class="body">
5451         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5452 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5453 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5454 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5455 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5456 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5457 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5458 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5459 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5460 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5461 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5462 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5463 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5464
5465 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5466 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5467 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5468 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5469 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5470 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5471 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5472 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5473 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5474
5475 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5476 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5477 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5478 is presented.</p>
5479
5480 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5481 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5482 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5483 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5484 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5485 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5486 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5487 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5488 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5489 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5490 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5491 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5492 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5493 find time to push this forward.</p>
5494
5495       </div>
5496       <div class="tags">
5497
5498
5499         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5500
5501
5502       </div>
5503     </div>
5504     <div class="padding"></div>
5505
5506     <div class="entry">
5507       <div class="title">
5508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
5509       </div>
5510       <div class="date">
5511         29th July 2011
5512       </div>
5513       <div class="body">
5514         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5515 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5516 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5517 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5518 issues.</p>
5519
5520 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5521 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5522 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5523
5524 <ol>
5525
5526 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5527 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5528 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5529 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5530 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5531 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5532 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5533 Debian.</li>
5534
5535 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5536 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5537 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5538 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5539 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5540 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5541 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5542 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5543 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5544 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5545 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5546 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5547 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5548
5549 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5550 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5551 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5552 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5553 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5554 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5555 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5556 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5557 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5558 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5559
5560 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5561 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5562 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5563 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5564 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5565 latter behaviour.</li>
5566
5567 </ol>
5568
5569 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5570 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5571 it do not matter much.</p>
5572
5573 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5574 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5575 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5576
5577       </div>
5578       <div class="tags">
5579
5580
5581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5582
5583
5584       </div>
5585     </div>
5586     <div class="padding"></div>
5587
5588     <div class="entry">
5589       <div class="title">
5590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
5591       </div>
5592       <div class="date">
5593         26th July 2011
5594       </div>
5595       <div class="body">
5596         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5597 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5598 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5599 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5600 security support for a few years.</p>
5601
5602 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5603 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5604 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5605 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5606 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5607 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5608 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5609 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5610 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5611 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5612 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5613 easier in the future.</p>
5614
5615 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5616 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5617 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5618 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5619 do not have time for.</p>
5620
5621       </div>
5622       <div class="tags">
5623
5624
5625         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
5626
5627
5628       </div>
5629     </div>
5630     <div class="padding"></div>
5631
5632     <div class="entry">
5633       <div class="title">
5634         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
5635       </div>
5636       <div class="date">
5637          3rd April 2011
5638       </div>
5639       <div class="body">
5640         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5641 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5642 update in English.</p>
5643
5644 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5645 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5646 of the British service
5647 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5648 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5649 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5650 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5651 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5652 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5653 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5654 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5655 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5656 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5657 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5658 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5659 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5660
5661 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5662 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5663 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5664 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5665 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5666 public infrastructure.</p>
5667
5668 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5669 such service?</p>
5670
5671       </div>
5672       <div class="tags">
5673
5674
5675         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
5676
5677
5678       </div>
5679     </div>
5680     <div class="padding"></div>
5681
5682     <div class="entry">
5683       <div class="title">
5684         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
5685       </div>
5686       <div class="date">
5687         28th January 2011
5688       </div>
5689       <div class="body">
5690         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5691 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5692 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5693 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5694 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5695 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5696 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5697 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5698 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5699 out which security holes were present in our free software
5700 collection.</p>
5701
5702 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5703 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5704 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5705 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5706 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5707 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5708 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5709 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5710 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5711 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5712 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5713 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5714 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5715 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5716 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5717 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5718
5719 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5720 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5721 check out, one could look up
5722 <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
5723 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5724 The most recent one is
5725 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5726 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5727 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5728
5729 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5730 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5731 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5732 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5733 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5734 security issues out.</p>
5735
5736 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5737 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5738 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5739 RHEL is providing
5740 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5741 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5742 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5743
5744 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5745 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5746 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5747 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5748 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5749 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5750 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5751 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5752 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5753 established soon.</p>
5754
5755 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5756 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5757 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5758 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5759 for their packages.</p>
5760
5761       </div>
5762       <div class="tags">
5763
5764
5765         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5766
5767
5768       </div>
5769     </div>
5770     <div class="padding"></div>
5771
5772     <div class="entry">
5773       <div class="title">
5774         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
5775       </div>
5776       <div class="date">
5777         23rd January 2011
5778       </div>
5779       <div class="body">
5780         <p>In the
5781 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5782 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5783 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5784 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5785 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5786 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5787 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5788 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5789 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5790 one of my machines like this:</p>
5791
5792 <pre>
5793 loaded modules:
5794 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5795 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5796 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5797 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5798 10de:03ec pata_amd
5799 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5800 1022:1103 k8temp
5801 109e:036e bttv
5802 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5803 11ab:4364 sky2
5804 </pre>
5805
5806 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5807 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5808
5809 <pre>
5810 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5811     echo loaded pci modules:
5812     (
5813         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5814         for address in * ; do
5815             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5816                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5817                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5818                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5819                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5820                     echo "$id $module"
5821                 fi
5822             fi
5823         done
5824     )
5825     echo
5826 fi
5827 </pre>
5828
5829 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5830 mappings:</p>
5831
5832 <pre>
5833 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5834     echo loaded usb modules:
5835     (
5836         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5837         for address in * ; do
5838             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5839                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5840                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5841                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5842                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5843                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5844                         echo "$id $module"
5845                     fi
5846                 fi
5847             fi
5848         done
5849     )
5850     echo
5851 fi
5852 </pre>
5853
5854 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5855 well.</p>
5856
5857       </div>
5858       <div class="tags">
5859
5860
5861         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5862
5863
5864       </div>
5865     </div>
5866     <div class="padding"></div>
5867
5868     <div class="entry">
5869       <div class="title">
5870         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
5871       </div>
5872       <div class="date">
5873         22nd December 2010
5874       </div>
5875       <div class="body">
5876         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5877 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5878 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5879 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5880 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5881 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5882 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5883 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5884 university.</p>
5885
5886 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5887 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5888 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5889 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5890 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5891 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5892 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5893 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5894
5895 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5896 I perform on a new model.</p>
5897
5898 <ul>
5899
5900 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5901 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5902 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5903
5904 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5905 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5906
5907 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5908 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5909 reported by the program.</li>
5910
5911 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5912 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5913 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5914 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5915 normally test this by playing
5916 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5917 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5918
5919 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5920 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5921
5922 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5923 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5924
5925 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5926 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5927
5928 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5929 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5930 few.</li>
5931
5932 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5933 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5934 notice this.</li>
5935
5936 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5937 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5938 resume.</li>
5939
5940 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5941 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5942 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5943 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5944 not.</li>
5945
5946 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5947 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5948 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5949 existence.</li>
5950
5951 </ul>
5952
5953 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5954 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5955 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5956 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5957 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5958 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5959 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5960 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5961
5962       </div>
5963       <div class="tags">
5964
5965
5966         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5967
5968
5969       </div>
5970     </div>
5971     <div class="padding"></div>
5972
5973     <div class="entry">
5974       <div class="title">
5975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5976       </div>
5977       <div class="date">
5978         11th December 2010
5979       </div>
5980       <div class="body">
5981         <p>As I continue to explore
5982 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5983 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5984 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5985
5986 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5987 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5988 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5989 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5990 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5991 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5992 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5993 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5994 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5995 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5996 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5997 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5998 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5999 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
6000 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
6001 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
6002 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
6003 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
6004 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
6005 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
6006
6007 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
6008 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
6009 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
6010 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
6011 If the Skolelinux foundation
6012 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
6013 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
6014 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
6015 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
6016 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
6017 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
6018 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
6019 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
6020
6021 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
6022 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
6023 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
6024 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
6025 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
6026 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
6027 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
6028 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
6029 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
6030 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
6031 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
6032 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
6033 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
6034 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
6035 currencies.</p>
6036
6037 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
6038 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
6039 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
6040 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
6041 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
6042 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
6043 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
6044 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
6045 BitCoins.  Check out
6046 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
6047 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
6048 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
6049 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
6050 yet.</p>
6051
6052 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
6053 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
6054 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
6055 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
6056 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
6057
6058       </div>
6059       <div class="tags">
6060
6061
6062         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6063
6064
6065       </div>
6066     </div>
6067     <div class="padding"></div>
6068
6069     <div class="entry">
6070       <div class="title">
6071         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
6072       </div>
6073       <div class="date">
6074         10th December 2010
6075       </div>
6076       <div class="body">
6077         <p>With this weeks lawless
6078 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
6079 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
6080 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
6081 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
6082 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
6083 A blog post from
6084 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
6085 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
6086 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
6087 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
6088 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
6089 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
6090 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
6091
6092 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
6093 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
6094 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
6095 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
6096 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
6097 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
6098 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
6099 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
6100 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
6101 Debian</a> soon.</p>
6102
6103 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
6104 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
6105 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
6106 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
6107 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
6108 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
6109 you can even get
6110 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
6111 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
6112 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
6113 on the current exchange rates.</p>
6114
6115 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
6116 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
6117 donations to the address
6118 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
6119
6120       </div>
6121       <div class="tags">
6122
6123
6124         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6125
6126
6127       </div>
6128     </div>
6129     <div class="padding"></div>
6130
6131     <div class="entry">
6132       <div class="title">
6133         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
6134       </div>
6135       <div class="date">
6136         27th November 2010
6137       </div>
6138       <div class="body">
6139         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
6140 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
6141 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
6142 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
6143 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
6144 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
6145 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
6146 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
6147
6148 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
6149 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6150 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
6151 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
6152 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
6153 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
6154 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
6155 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
6156 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
6157 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
6158 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
6159
6160 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
6161 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
6162 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
6163 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
6164 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
6165 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
6166 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
6167 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
6168 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
6169 what is going on.</p>
6170
6171       </div>
6172       <div class="tags">
6173
6174
6175         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
6176
6177
6178       </div>
6179     </div>
6180     <div class="padding"></div>
6181
6182     <div class="entry">
6183       <div class="title">
6184         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
6185       </div>
6186       <div class="date">
6187         22nd November 2010
6188       </div>
6189       <div class="body">
6190         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6191 upgrade testing of the
6192 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6193 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6194 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6195 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6196
6197 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6198
6199 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6200
6201 <blockquote><p>
6202   apache2.2-bin
6203   aptdaemon
6204   baobab
6205   binfmt-support
6206   browser-plugin-gnash
6207   cheese-common
6208   cli-common
6209   cups-pk-helper
6210   dmz-cursor-theme
6211   empathy
6212   empathy-common
6213   freedesktop-sound-theme
6214   freeglut3
6215   gconf-defaults-service
6216   gdm-themes
6217   gedit-plugins
6218   geoclue
6219   geoclue-hostip
6220   geoclue-localnet
6221   geoclue-manual
6222   geoclue-yahoo
6223   gnash
6224   gnash-common
6225   gnome
6226   gnome-backgrounds
6227   gnome-cards-data
6228   gnome-codec-install
6229   gnome-core
6230   gnome-desktop-environment
6231   gnome-disk-utility
6232   gnome-screenshot
6233   gnome-search-tool
6234   gnome-session-canberra
6235   gnome-system-log
6236   gnome-themes-extras
6237   gnome-themes-more
6238   gnome-user-share
6239   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6240   gstreamer0.10-tools
6241   gtk2-engines
6242   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6243   gtk2-engines-smooth
6244   hamster-applet
6245   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6246   libapr1
6247   libaprutil1
6248   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6249   libaprutil1-ldap
6250   libart2.0-cil
6251   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6252   libboost-python1.42.0
6253   libboost-thread1.42.0
6254   libchamplain-0.4-0
6255   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6256   libcheese-gtk18
6257   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6258   libcryptui0
6259   libdiscid0
6260   libelf1
6261   libepc-1.0-2
6262   libepc-common
6263   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6264   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6265   libfreerdp0
6266   libgconf2.0-cil
6267   libgdata-common
6268   libgdata7
6269   libgdu-gtk0
6270   libgee2
6271   libgeoclue0
6272   libgexiv2-0
6273   libgif4
6274   libglade2.0-cil
6275   libglib2.0-cil
6276   libgmime2.4-cil
6277   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6278   libgnome2.24-cil
6279   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6280   libgpod-common
6281   libgpod4
6282   libgtk2.0-cil
6283   libgtkglext1
6284   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6285   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6286   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6287   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6288   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6289   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6290   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6291   libmono-security2.0-cil
6292   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6293   libmono-system2.0-cil
6294   libmtp8
6295   libmusicbrainz3-6
6296   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6297   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6298   libopal3.6.8
6299   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6300   libpt2.6.7
6301   libpython2.6
6302   librpm1
6303   librpmio1
6304   libsdl1.2debian
6305   libsrtp0
6306   libssh-4
6307   libtelepathy-farsight0
6308   libtelepathy-glib0
6309   libtidy-0.99-0
6310   media-player-info
6311   mesa-utils
6312   mono-2.0-gac
6313   mono-gac
6314   mono-runtime
6315   nautilus-sendto
6316   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6317   p7zip-full
6318   pkg-config
6319   python-aptdaemon
6320   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6321   python-axiom
6322   python-beautifulsoup
6323   python-bugbuddy
6324   python-clientform
6325   python-coherence
6326   python-configobj
6327   python-crypto
6328   python-cupshelpers
6329   python-elementtree
6330   python-epsilon
6331   python-evolution
6332   python-feedparser
6333   python-gdata
6334   python-gdbm
6335   python-gst0.10
6336   python-gtkglext1
6337   python-gtksourceview2
6338   python-httplib2
6339   python-louie
6340   python-mako
6341   python-markupsafe
6342   python-mechanize
6343   python-nevow
6344   python-notify
6345   python-opengl
6346   python-openssl
6347   python-pam
6348   python-pkg-resources
6349   python-pyasn1
6350   python-pysqlite2
6351   python-rdflib
6352   python-serial
6353   python-tagpy
6354   python-twisted-bin
6355   python-twisted-conch
6356   python-twisted-core
6357   python-twisted-web
6358   python-utidylib
6359   python-webkit
6360   python-xdg
6361   python-zope.interface
6362   remmina
6363   remmina-plugin-data
6364   remmina-plugin-rdp
6365   remmina-plugin-vnc
6366   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6367   rhythmbox-plugins
6368   rpm-common
6369   rpm2cpio
6370   seahorse-plugins
6371   shotwell
6372   software-center
6373   system-config-printer-udev
6374   telepathy-gabble
6375   telepathy-mission-control-5
6376   telepathy-salut
6377   tomboy
6378   totem
6379   totem-coherence
6380   totem-mozilla
6381   totem-plugins
6382   transmission-common
6383   xdg-user-dirs
6384   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6385   xserver-xephyr
6386 </p></blockquote>
6387
6388 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6389
6390 <blockquote><p>
6391   cheese
6392   ekiga
6393   eog
6394   epiphany-extensions
6395   evolution-exchange
6396   fast-user-switch-applet
6397   file-roller
6398   gcalctool
6399   gconf-editor
6400   gdm
6401   gedit
6402   gedit-common
6403   gnome-games
6404   gnome-games-data
6405   gnome-nettool
6406   gnome-system-tools
6407   gnome-themes
6408   gnuchess
6409   gucharmap
6410   guile-1.8-libs
6411   libavahi-ui0
6412   libdmx1
6413   libgalago3
6414   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6415   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6416   liblircclient0
6417   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6418   libspeexdsp1
6419   libsvga1
6420   rhythmbox
6421   seahorse
6422   sound-juicer
6423   system-config-printer
6424   totem-common
6425   transmission-gtk
6426   vinagre
6427   vino
6428 </p></blockquote>
6429
6430 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6431
6432 <blockquote><p>
6433   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6434 </p></blockquote>
6435
6436 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6437
6438 <blockquote><p>
6439 [nothing]
6440 </p></blockquote>
6441
6442 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6443
6444 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6445
6446 <blockquote><p>
6447   ksmserver
6448 </p></blockquote>
6449
6450 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6451
6452 <blockquote><p>
6453   kwin
6454   network-manager-kde
6455 </p></blockquote>
6456
6457 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6458
6459 <blockquote><p>
6460   arts
6461   dolphin
6462   freespacenotifier
6463   google-gadgets-gst
6464   google-gadgets-xul
6465   kappfinder
6466   kcalc
6467   kcharselect
6468   kde-core
6469   kde-plasma-desktop
6470   kde-standard
6471   kde-window-manager
6472   kdeartwork
6473   kdeartwork-emoticons
6474   kdeartwork-style
6475   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6476   kdebase
6477   kdebase-apps
6478   kdebase-workspace
6479   kdebase-workspace-bin
6480   kdebase-workspace-data
6481   kdeeject
6482   kdelibs
6483   kdeplasma-addons
6484   kdeutils
6485   kdewallpapers
6486   kdf
6487   kfloppy
6488   kgpg
6489   khelpcenter4
6490   kinfocenter
6491   konq-plugins-l10n
6492   konqueror-nsplugins
6493   kscreensaver
6494   kscreensaver-xsavers
6495   ktimer
6496   kwrite
6497   libgle3
6498   libkde4-ruby1.8
6499   libkonq5
6500   libkonq5-templates
6501   libnetpbm10
6502   libplasma-ruby
6503   libplasma-ruby1.8
6504   libqt4-ruby1.8
6505   marble-data
6506   marble-plugins
6507   netpbm
6508   nuvola-icon-theme
6509   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6510   plasma-desktop
6511   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6512   plasma-runners-addons
6513   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6514   plasma-scriptengine-python
6515   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6516   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6517   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6518   plasma-scriptengines
6519   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6520   plasma-widget-folderview
6521   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6522   ruby
6523   sweeper
6524   update-notifier-kde
6525   xscreensaver-data-extra
6526   xscreensaver-gl
6527   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6528   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6529 </p></blockquote>
6530
6531 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6532
6533 <blockquote><p>
6534   ark
6535   google-gadgets-common
6536   google-gadgets-qt
6537   htdig
6538   kate
6539   kdebase-bin
6540   kdebase-data
6541   kdepasswd
6542   kfind
6543   klipper
6544   konq-plugins
6545   konqueror
6546   ksysguard
6547   ksysguardd
6548   libarchive1
6549   libcln6
6550   libeet1
6551   libeina-svn-06
6552   libggadget-1.0-0b
6553   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6554   libgps19
6555   libkdecorations4
6556   libkephal4
6557   libkonq4
6558   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6559   libkscreensaver5
6560   libksgrd4
6561   libksignalplotter4
6562   libkunitconversion4
6563   libkwineffects1a
6564   libmarblewidget4
6565   libntrack-qt4-1
6566   libntrack0
6567   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6568   libplasmaclock4a
6569   libplasmagenericshell4
6570   libprocesscore4a
6571   libprocessui4a
6572   libqalculate5
6573   libqedje0a
6574   libqtruby4shared2
6575   libqzion0a
6576   libruby1.8
6577   libscim8c2a
6578   libsmokekdecore4-3
6579   libsmokekdeui4-3
6580   libsmokekfile3
6581   libsmokekhtml3
6582   libsmokekio3
6583   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6584   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6585   libsmokekparts3
6586   libsmokektexteditor3
6587   libsmokekutils3
6588   libsmokenepomuk3
6589   libsmokephonon3
6590   libsmokeplasma3
6591   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6592   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6593   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6594   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6595   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6596   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6597   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6598   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6599   libsmokeqttest4-3
6600   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6601   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6602   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6603   libsmokesolid3
6604   libsmokesoprano3
6605   libtaskmanager4a
6606   libtidy-0.99-0
6607   libweather-ion4a
6608   libxklavier16
6609   libxxf86misc1
6610   okteta
6611   oxygencursors
6612   plasma-dataengines-addons
6613   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6614   plasma-widget-lancelot
6615   plasma-widgets-addons
6616   plasma-widgets-workspace
6617   polkit-kde-1
6618   ruby1.8
6619   systemsettings
6620   update-notifier-common
6621 </p></blockquote>
6622
6623 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6624 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6625 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6626 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6627
6628       </div>
6629       <div class="tags">
6630
6631
6632         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6633
6634
6635       </div>
6636     </div>
6637     <div class="padding"></div>
6638
6639     <div class="entry">
6640       <div class="title">
6641         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
6642       </div>
6643       <div class="date">
6644         22nd November 2010
6645       </div>
6646       <div class="body">
6647         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6648 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6649 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6650 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6651 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6652 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6653 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6654 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6655 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6656
6657 <p>I found
6658 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6659 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6660 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6661 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6662 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6663 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6664
6665 <pre>
6666 #!/bin/sh
6667
6668 # Based on
6669 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6670
6671 set -e
6672 set -x
6673
6674 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6675     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6676     exit 1
6677 else
6678     host="$1"
6679 fi
6680
6681 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6682     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6683     exit 1
6684 fi
6685
6686 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6687 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6688 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6689 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6690
6691 img=$host.img
6692 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6693 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6694
6695 parted $img mklabel msdos
6696 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6697 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6698 parted $img set 1 boot on
6699
6700 modprobe dm-mod
6701 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6702 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6703
6704 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6705 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6706 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6707
6708 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6709 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6710 </pre>
6711
6712 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6713 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6714
6715 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6716 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6717 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6718 seem to work just fine.</p>
6719
6720       </div>
6721       <div class="tags">
6722
6723
6724         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6725
6726
6727       </div>
6728     </div>
6729     <div class="padding"></div>
6730
6731     <div class="entry">
6732       <div class="title">
6733         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
6734       </div>
6735       <div class="date">
6736         20th November 2010
6737       </div>
6738       <div class="body">
6739         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6740 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6741 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6742 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6743
6744 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6745 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6746 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6747
6748 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6749
6750 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6751
6752 <blockquote><p>
6753   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6754   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6755   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6756   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6757   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6758   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6759   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6760   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6761   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6762   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6763   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6764   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6765   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6766   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6767   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6768   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6769   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6770   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6771   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6772   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6773   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6774   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6775   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6776   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6777   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6778   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6779   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6780   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6781   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6782   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6783   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6784   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6785   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6786   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6787   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6788   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6789   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6790   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6791   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6792   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6793   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6794   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6795   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6796   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6797   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6798   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6799   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6800   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6801   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6802   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6803   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6804   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6805   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6806   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6807   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6808   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6809   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6810   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6811   zip
6812 </p></blockquote>
6813
6814 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6815
6816 <blockquote><p>
6817   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6818   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6819   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6820   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6821   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6822   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6823   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6824   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6825   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6826   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6827   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6828   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6829   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6830   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6831   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6832   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6833   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6834   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6835   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6836   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6837   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6838   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6839   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6840   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6841   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6842   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6843   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6844   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6845   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6846 </p></blockquote>
6847
6848 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6849
6850 <blockquote><p>
6851   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6852 </p></blockquote>
6853
6854 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6855
6856 <blockquote><p>
6857 [nothing]
6858 </p></blockquote>
6859
6860 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6861
6862 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6863
6864 <blockquote><p>
6865   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6866   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6867   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6868   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6869   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6870   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6871   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6872   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6873   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6874   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6875   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6876   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6877   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6878   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6879   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6880   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6881   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6882   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6883   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6884   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6885   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6886   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6887   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6888   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6889   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6890   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6891   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6892   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6893   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6894   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6895 </p></blockquote>
6896
6897 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6898
6899 <blockquote><p>
6900   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6901   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6902   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6903   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6904   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6905   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6906   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6907   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6908   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6909   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6910   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6911   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6912   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6913   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6914   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6915   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6916   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6917   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6918   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6919   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6920   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6921   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6922   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6923   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6924   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6925   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6926   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6927   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6928   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6929   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6930   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6931   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6932   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6933 </p></blockquote>
6934
6935 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6936
6937 <blockquote><p>
6938   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6939   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6940   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6941   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6942   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6943   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6944   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6945 </p></blockquote>
6946
6947 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6948
6949 <blockquote><p>
6950   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6951 </p></blockquote>
6952
6953       </div>
6954       <div class="tags">
6955
6956
6957         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6958
6959
6960       </div>
6961     </div>
6962     <div class="padding"></div>
6963
6964     <div class="entry">
6965       <div class="title">
6966         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6967       </div>
6968       <div class="date">
6969         20th November 2010
6970       </div>
6971       <div class="body">
6972         <p>Answering
6973 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6974 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6975 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6976 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6977 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6978 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6979 releases out more often.</p>
6980
6981 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6982 I have considered setting up a <a
6983 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6984 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6985 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6986 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6987 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6988 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6989 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6990 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6991 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6992 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6993 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6994 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6995
6996       </div>
6997       <div class="tags">
6998
6999
7000         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7001
7002
7003       </div>
7004     </div>
7005     <div class="padding"></div>
7006
7007     <div class="entry">
7008       <div class="title">
7009         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
7010       </div>
7011       <div class="date">
7012          9th November 2010
7013       </div>
7014       <div class="body">
7015         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
7016
7017 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
7018 3D linked in from
7019 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
7020 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
7021
7022       </div>
7023       <div class="tags">
7024
7025
7026         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7027
7028
7029       </div>
7030     </div>
7031     <div class="padding"></div>
7032
7033     <div class="entry">
7034       <div class="title">
7035         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
7036       </div>
7037       <div class="date">
7038         24th October 2010
7039       </div>
7040       <div class="body">
7041         <p>Some updates.</p>
7042
7043 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
7044 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
7045 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
7046 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
7047 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
7048 :)</p>
7049
7050 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
7051 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
7052 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
7053 It is called
7054 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
7055 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
7056 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
7057 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
7058 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
7059 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
7060
7061 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
7062 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
7063 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
7064 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
7065 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
7066 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
7067 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
7068 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
7069 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
7070 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
7071
7072       </div>
7073       <div class="tags">
7074
7075
7076         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7077
7078
7079       </div>
7080     </div>
7081     <div class="padding"></div>
7082
7083     <div class="entry">
7084       <div class="title">
7085         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
7086       </div>
7087       <div class="date">
7088          4th September 2010
7089       </div>
7090       <div class="body">
7091         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
7092 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
7093 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
7094 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
7095 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
7096 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
7097 installed.</p>
7098
7099 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
7100 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
7101 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
7102 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
7103 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7104 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
7105 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
7106 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
7107 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
7108
7109 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
7110 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
7111 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
7112 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
7113 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
7114 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
7115 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
7116 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
7117 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
7118 pages they want to visit.</p>
7119
7120 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
7121 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
7122 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
7123 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
7124 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
7125 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
7126 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
7127 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
7128 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
7129 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
7130 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
7131
7132       </div>
7133       <div class="tags">
7134
7135
7136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7137
7138
7139       </div>
7140     </div>
7141     <div class="padding"></div>
7142
7143     <div class="entry">
7144       <div class="title">
7145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
7146       </div>
7147       <div class="date">
7148         27th July 2010
7149       </div>
7150       <div class="body">
7151         <p>I discovered this while doing
7152 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
7153 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
7154 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7155 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7156 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
7157
7158 <p>An example is from todays
7159 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
7160 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7161 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
7162 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7163 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7164 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7165 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
7166
7167 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
7168
7169 <blockquote><pre>
7170 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7171  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7172   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7173 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7174  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7175 </pre></blockquote>
7176
7177 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7178 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7179 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7180 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7181 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7182 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7183 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7184 of dependency loops.</p>
7185
7186 <p>Thanks to
7187 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7188 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7189 dependencies
7190 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7191 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7192
7193 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7194 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7195 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7196 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7197 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7198 it.</p>
7199
7200       </div>
7201       <div class="tags">
7202
7203
7204         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7205
7206
7207       </div>
7208     </div>
7209     <div class="padding"></div>
7210
7211     <div class="entry">
7212       <div class="title">
7213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
7214       </div>
7215       <div class="date">
7216         17th July 2010
7217       </div>
7218       <div class="body">
7219         <p>This is a
7220 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7221 on my
7222 <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
7223 work</a> on
7224 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7225 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7226
7227 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7228 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7229 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7230 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7231
7232 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7233 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7234 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7235
7236 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7237
7238 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7239 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7240 the web.
7241
7242 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7243 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7244 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7245 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7246 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7247 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7248
7249 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7250 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7251 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7252 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7253 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7254 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7255 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7256 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7257 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7258 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7259 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7260 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7261 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7262 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7263 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7264 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7265
7266 <blockquote><pre>
7267 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7268   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7269   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7270   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7271   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7272   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7273   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7274
7275 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7276   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7277   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7278   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7279   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7280   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7281 </pre></blockquote>
7282
7283 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7284 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7285 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7286 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7287 also exist.</p>
7288
7289 <blockquote><pre>
7290 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7291 objectclass: top
7292 objectclass: dnsdomain
7293 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7294 dc: tjener
7295 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7296 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7297
7298 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7299 objectclass: top
7300 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7301 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7302 dc: 2
7303 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7304 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7305 </pre></blockquote>
7306
7307 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7308 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7309 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7310 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7311 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7312 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7313 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7314 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7315 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7316 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7317 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7318 instead.</p>
7319
7320 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7321 like this:</p>
7322
7323 <blockquote><pre>
7324 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7325   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7326   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7327   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7328   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7329   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7330
7331 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7332   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7333 </pre></blockquote>
7334
7335 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7336 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7337 reverse lookups.</p>
7338
7339 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7340 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7341 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7342 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7343
7344 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7345 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7346 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7347
7348 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7349 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7350 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7351 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7352 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7353
7354 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7355 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7356 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7357 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7358 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7359
7360 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7361 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7362 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7363 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7364 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7365 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7366
7367 <blockquote><pre>
7368 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7369     SUP top
7370     AUXILIARY
7371     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7372           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7373           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7374           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7375           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7376     ))
7377 </pre></blockquote>
7378
7379 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7380 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7381 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7382 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7383 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7384 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7385
7386 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7387
7388 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7389 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7390 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7391 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7392 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7393
7394 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7395 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7396 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7397 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7398
7399 <blockquote><pre>
7400 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7401 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7402 </pre></blockquote>
7403
7404 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7405 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7406 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7407 search result is this entry:</p>
7408
7409 <blockquote><pre>
7410 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7411 cn: dhcp
7412 objectClass: top
7413 objectClass: dhcpServer
7414 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7415 </pre></blockquote>
7416
7417 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7418 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7419 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7420 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7421 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7422 The search result is this entry:</p>
7423
7424 <blockquote><pre>
7425 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7426 cn: DHCP Config
7427 objectClass: top
7428 objectClass: dhcpService
7429 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7430 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7431 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7432 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7433 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7434 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7435 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7436 </pre></blockquote>
7437
7438 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7439 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7440 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7441 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7442 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7443 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7444 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7445 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7446 related computer objects.</p>
7447
7448 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7449 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7450 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7451 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7452 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7453 like:</p>
7454
7455 <blockquote><pre>
7456 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7457 cn: hostname
7458 objectClass: top
7459 objectClass: dhcpHost
7460 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7461 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7462 </pre></blockquote>
7463
7464 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7465 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7466 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7467 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7468 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7469 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7470 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7471 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7472 structural object class.
7473
7474 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7475
7476 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7477 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7478 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7479 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7480 in the configuration.</p>
7481
7482 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7483 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7484 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7485 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7486 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7487 structure.</p>
7488
7489 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7490 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7491
7492 <blockquote><pre>
7493 ou=services
7494   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7495     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7496     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7497       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7498         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7499     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7500       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7501         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7502     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7503       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7504 </pre></blockquote>
7505
7506 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7507 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7508 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7509 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7510
7511 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7512 like this:</p>
7513
7514 <blockquote><pre>
7515 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7516 dc: hostname
7517 objectClass: top
7518 objectClass: dhcpHost
7519 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7520 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7521 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7522 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7523 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7524 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7525 </pre></blockquote>
7526
7527 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7528 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7529 auxiliary object class.</p>
7530
7531       </div>
7532       <div class="tags">
7533
7534
7535         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7536
7537
7538       </div>
7539     </div>
7540     <div class="padding"></div>
7541
7542     <div class="entry">
7543       <div class="title">
7544         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7545       </div>
7546       <div class="date">
7547         14th July 2010
7548       </div>
7549       <div class="body">
7550         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7551 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7552 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7553 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7554 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7555
7556 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7557 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7558
7559 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7560 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7561 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7562 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7563 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7564 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7565
7566 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7567 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7568 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7569 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7570 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7571 seem to work.</p>
7572
7573 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7574 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7575 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7576 this:</p>
7577
7578 <blockquote><pre>
7579   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7580   cn: hostname
7581   objectClass: dhcphost
7582   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7583   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7584   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7585   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7586   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7587   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7588   ldapconfigsound: Y
7589 </pre></blockquote>
7590
7591 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7592 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7593 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7594 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7595
7596 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7597 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7598 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7599 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7600 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7601 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7602 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7603 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7604
7605 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7606 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7607
7608       </div>
7609       <div class="tags">
7610
7611
7612         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7613
7614
7615       </div>
7616     </div>
7617     <div class="padding"></div>
7618
7619     <div class="entry">
7620       <div class="title">
7621         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7622       </div>
7623       <div class="date">
7624         11th July 2010
7625       </div>
7626       <div class="body">
7627         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7628 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7629 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7630 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7631
7632 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7633 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7634 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7635 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7636 LTSP clients.</p>
7637
7638 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7639 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7640 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7641
7642 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7643 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7644 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7645
7646 <blockquote><pre>
7647 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7648 #
7649 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7650 #
7651 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7652 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7653 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7654 #
7655 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7656 # existence of attribute names.
7657 #
7658 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7659 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7660 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7661 #
7662 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7663 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7664 #
7665 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7666 #     SUP top
7667 #     AUXILIARY
7668 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7669
7670 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7671 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7672     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7673     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7674         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7675         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7676             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7677             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7678             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7679             # bass value on to clients
7680             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7681         done
7682     done
7683 fi
7684 </pre></blockquote>
7685
7686 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7687 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7688 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7689 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7690 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7691
7692 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7693 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7694
7695 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7696 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7697 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7698 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7699 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7700 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7701
7702       </div>
7703       <div class="tags">
7704
7705
7706         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7707
7708
7709       </div>
7710     </div>
7711     <div class="padding"></div>
7712
7713     <div class="entry">
7714       <div class="title">
7715         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7716       </div>
7717       <div class="date">
7718          9th July 2010
7719       </div>
7720       <div class="body">
7721         <p>Since
7722 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7723 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7724 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7725 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7726 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7727 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7728 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7729 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7730 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7731 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7732 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7733 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7734 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7735
7736       </div>
7737       <div class="tags">
7738
7739
7740         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7741
7742
7743       </div>
7744     </div>
7745     <div class="padding"></div>
7746
7747     <div class="entry">
7748       <div class="title">
7749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
7750       </div>
7751       <div class="date">
7752          3rd July 2010
7753       </div>
7754       <div class="body">
7755         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7756 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7757 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7758 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7759 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7760 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7761 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7762 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7763
7764 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7765 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7766 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7767 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7768 publish the difference.</p>
7769
7770 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7771
7772 <blockquote><p>
7773   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7774   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7775   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7776   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7777   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7778   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7779   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7780   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7781 </p></blockquote>
7782
7783 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7784
7785 <blockquote><p>
7786   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7787   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7788   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7789   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7790   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7791   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7792   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7793   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7794   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7795   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7796   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7797   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7798   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7799   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7800   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7801   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7802   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7803   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7804   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7805   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7806 </p></blockquote>
7807
7808 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7809
7810 <blockquote><p>
7811   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7812   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7813   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7814   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7815   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7816   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7817   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7818   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7819   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7820   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7821   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7822   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7823   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7824   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7825   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7826   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7827   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7828   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7829   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7830   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7831   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7832 </p></blockquote>
7833
7834 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7835
7836 <blockquote><p>
7837   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7838   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7839   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7840 </p></blockquote>
7841
7842 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7843 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7844 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7845 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7846 the difference somewhat.
7847
7848       </div>
7849       <div class="tags">
7850
7851
7852         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7853
7854
7855       </div>
7856     </div>
7857     <div class="padding"></div>
7858
7859     <div class="entry">
7860       <div class="title">
7861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7862       </div>
7863       <div class="date">
7864         28th June 2010
7865       </div>
7866       <div class="body">
7867         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7868 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7869 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7870 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7871 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7872 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7873 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7874 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7875 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7876 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7877
7878 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7879 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7880 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7881 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7882 released.</p>
7883
7884 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7885 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7886 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7887 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7888
7889 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7890 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7891
7892 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7893 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7894 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7895 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7896 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7897
7898       </div>
7899       <div class="tags">
7900
7901
7902         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7903
7904
7905       </div>
7906     </div>
7907     <div class="padding"></div>
7908
7909     <div class="entry">
7910       <div class="title">
7911         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
7912       </div>
7913       <div class="date">
7914         24th June 2010
7915       </div>
7916       <div class="body">
7917         <p>A while back, I
7918 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7919 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7920 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7921 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7922
7923 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7924 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7925 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7926 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7927
7928 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7929 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7930 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7931 Debian Edu.</p>
7932
7933 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7934 the
7935 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7936 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7937 available today from IETF.</p>
7938
7939 <pre>
7940 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7941 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7942 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7943  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7944         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7945         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7946 -       SUP top
7947 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7948         MUST cn
7949         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7950         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7951 </pre>
7952
7953 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7954 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7955 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7956
7957 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7958 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7959
7960       </div>
7961       <div class="tags">
7962
7963
7964         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7965
7966
7967       </div>
7968     </div>
7969     <div class="padding"></div>
7970
7971     <div class="entry">
7972       <div class="title">
7973         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
7974       </div>
7975       <div class="date">
7976         16th June 2010
7977       </div>
7978       <div class="body">
7979         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7980 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7981 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7982 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7983 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7984 this:
7985
7986 <blockquote><pre>
7987 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7988 tasksel --new-install
7989 </pre></blockquote>
7990
7991 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7992 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7993 any output what so ever.
7994
7995 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7996 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7997 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7998 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7999 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
8000 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
8001 code like this:
8002
8003 <blockquote><pre>
8004 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8005 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
8006 $cmd
8007 </pre></blockquote>
8008
8009 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
8010 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
8011 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
8012 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
8013 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
8014 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
8015 installation.</p>
8016
8017 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
8018 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
8019 like this.</p>
8020
8021       </div>
8022       <div class="tags">
8023
8024
8025         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8026
8027
8028       </div>
8029     </div>
8030     <div class="padding"></div>
8031
8032     <div class="entry">
8033       <div class="title">
8034         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
8035       </div>
8036       <div class="date">
8037         13th June 2010
8038       </div>
8039       <div class="body">
8040         <p>My
8041 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
8042 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
8043 finally made the upgrade logs available from
8044 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
8045 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
8046 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
8047 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
8048
8049 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
8050 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
8051 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
8052 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
8053 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
8054 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
8055 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
8056 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
8057
8058 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
8059 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
8060 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
8061 too surprising.</p>
8062
8063 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
8064 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
8065 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
8066 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
8067 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
8068 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
8069 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
8070 continue.</p>
8071
8072 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
8073 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
8074   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
8075   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
8076   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
8077   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
8078   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
8079   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8080   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8081   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8082   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8083   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8084   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8085   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8086   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8087   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8088   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8089   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8090   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8091   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8092   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8093   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8094   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8095   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8096   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8097   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8098   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8099   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8100   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
8101   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
8102
8103 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
8104
8105 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
8106   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
8107   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
8108   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
8109   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8110   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
8111   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
8112   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
8113   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
8114   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
8115   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8116   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
8117   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8118   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
8119   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
8120   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
8121   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
8122   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
8123   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
8124   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
8125   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
8126   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
8127   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
8128   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
8129   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8130   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
8131   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
8132   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
8133   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
8134   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8135   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8136   zip</p>
8137
8138 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
8139
8140 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
8141   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
8142   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
8143   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
8144   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
8145   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
8146   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8147   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8148   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8149   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8150   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8151   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8152   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8153   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8154   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8155   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8156   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8157   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8158   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8159   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8160   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8161   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8162   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8163   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8164   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8165   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8166   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8167   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
8168
8169 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
8170 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8171   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8172   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
8173   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
8174   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8175   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
8176   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
8177   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8178   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8179   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8180   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8181   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8182   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8183   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8184   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8185   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8186   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8187   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8188   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8189   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8190   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8191   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
8192   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8193   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8194   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8195   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8196   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8197   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
8198   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8199   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8200   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8201   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8202   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8203   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8204   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8205   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8206   xulrunner-1.9</p>
8207
8208
8209       </div>
8210       <div class="tags">
8211
8212
8213         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8214
8215
8216       </div>
8217     </div>
8218     <div class="padding"></div>
8219
8220     <div class="entry">
8221       <div class="title">
8222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
8223       </div>
8224       <div class="date">
8225         11th June 2010
8226       </div>
8227       <div class="body">
8228         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8229 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
8230 have been discovered and reported in the process
8231 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
8232 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
8233 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
8234 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8235 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
8236
8237 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8238 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8239 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8240 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8241 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8242 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
8243
8244 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8245 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8246 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8247 is created.  The bug report
8248 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
8249 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8250 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
8251 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8252 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
8253 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
8254 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8255 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8256 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
8257 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8258 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8259 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8260 Debian Squeeze.</p>
8261
8262 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
8263 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
8264 trick:</p>
8265
8266 <blockquote><pre>
8267 #!/bin/sh
8268 set -ex
8269
8270 if [ "$1" ] ; then
8271     desktop=$1
8272 else
8273     desktop=gnome
8274 fi
8275
8276 from=lenny
8277 to=squeeze
8278
8279 exec &lt; /dev/null
8280 unset LANG
8281 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8282 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8283 fuser -mv .
8284 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8285 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8286 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
8287 #!/bin/sh
8288 exit 101
8289 EOF
8290 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8291 exit_cleanup() {
8292     umount $tmpdir/proc
8293 }
8294 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8295 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8296 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8297
8298 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8299
8300 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
8301 # to return the correct answers.
8302 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8303     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8304
8305 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8306 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8307     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
8308 #!/bin/sh
8309 exit 2
8310 EOF
8311     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8312 done
8313
8314 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8315 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8316 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8317 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8318
8319 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8320 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8321 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8322 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8323 fuser -mv
8324 </pre></blockquote>
8325
8326 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8327 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8328 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8329 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
8330 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8331 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8332
8333 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8334 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8335 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8336 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8337 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8338 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8339 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8340
8341 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8342 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8343 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8344 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8345 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8346 packages.</p>
8347
8348       </div>
8349       <div class="tags">
8350
8351
8352         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8353
8354
8355       </div>
8356     </div>
8357     <div class="padding"></div>
8358
8359     <div class="entry">
8360       <div class="title">
8361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
8362       </div>
8363       <div class="date">
8364          6th June 2010
8365       </div>
8366       <div class="body">
8367         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8368 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8369 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8370 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8371 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8372 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8373 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8374
8375 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8376 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8377 COLUMNS):</p>
8378
8379 <blockquote><pre>
8380 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8381 previous=N
8382 PREVLEVEL=
8383 RUNLEVEL=
8384 runlevel=S
8385 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8386 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8387 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8388 </pre></blockquote>
8389
8390 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8391 script.</p>
8392
8393 <blockquote><pre>
8394 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8395 previous=N
8396 PREVLEVEL=N
8397 RUNLEVEL=S
8398 runlevel=S
8399 </pre></blockquote>
8400
8401 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8402 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8403 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8404
8405 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8406 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8407 choice.</p>
8408
8409       </div>
8410       <div class="tags">
8411
8412
8413         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8414
8415
8416       </div>
8417     </div>
8418     <div class="padding"></div>
8419
8420     <div class="entry">
8421       <div class="title">
8422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8423       </div>
8424       <div class="date">
8425          6th June 2010
8426       </div>
8427       <div class="body">
8428         <p>Via the
8429 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8430 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8431 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8432 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8433 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8434
8435       </div>
8436       <div class="tags">
8437
8438
8439         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
8440
8441
8442       </div>
8443     </div>
8444     <div class="padding"></div>
8445
8446     <div class="entry">
8447       <div class="title">
8448         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
8449       </div>
8450       <div class="date">
8451          3rd June 2010
8452       </div>
8453       <div class="body">
8454         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8455 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8456 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8457 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8458 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8459
8460 <blockquote><pre>
8461 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8462   vendor                    count
8463   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8464     PowerEdge 1750              1
8465   IBM                           1
8466     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8467   Intel                         2
8468   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8469 maintainer:~#
8470 </pre></blockquote>
8471
8472 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8473 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8474 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8475 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8476 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8477
8478 <p>A larger list is
8479 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8480 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8481 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8482 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8483 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8484 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8485 collector.</p>
8486
8487       </div>
8488       <div class="tags">
8489
8490
8491         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
8492
8493
8494       </div>
8495     </div>
8496     <div class="padding"></div>
8497
8498     <div class="entry">
8499       <div class="title">
8500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
8501       </div>
8502       <div class="date">
8503          1st June 2010
8504       </div>
8505       <div class="body">
8506         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8507 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8508 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8509 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8510 wait.</p>
8511
8512 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8513 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8514 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8515 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8516 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8517 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8518
8519 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8520 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8521 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8522 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8523 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8524 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8525 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8526 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8527
8528 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8529
8530       </div>
8531       <div class="tags">
8532
8533
8534         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8535
8536
8537       </div>
8538     </div>
8539     <div class="padding"></div>
8540
8541     <div class="entry">
8542       <div class="title">
8543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
8544       </div>
8545       <div class="date">
8546         27th May 2010
8547       </div>
8548       <div class="body">
8549         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8550 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8551 issues are known and should be solved:
8552
8553 <p><ul>
8554
8555 <li>The wicd package seen to
8556 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8557 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8558 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8559 seem to be on the case.</li>
8560
8561 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8562 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8563 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8564 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8565
8566 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8567 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8568 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8569 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8570 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8571 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8572 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8573 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8574
8575 </ul></p>
8576
8577 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8578 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8579 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8580 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8581
8582 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8583 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8584 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8585 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8586
8587 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8588
8589       </div>
8590       <div class="tags">
8591
8592
8593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8594
8595
8596       </div>
8597     </div>
8598     <div class="padding"></div>
8599
8600     <div class="entry">
8601       <div class="title">
8602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8603       </div>
8604       <div class="date">
8605         22nd May 2010
8606       </div>
8607       <div class="body">
8608         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8609 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8610 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8611 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8612
8613 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8614 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8615 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8616 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8617 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8618 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8619 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8620 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8621 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8622 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8623 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8624 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8625 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8626 going to work.</p>
8627
8628 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8629 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8630 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8631 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8632 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8633 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8634 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8635 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8636 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8637 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8638 Edu.</p>
8639
8640 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8641 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8642 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8643 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8644 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8645 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8646
8647 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8648 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8649
8650       </div>
8651       <div class="tags">
8652
8653
8654         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8655
8656
8657       </div>
8658     </div>
8659     <div class="padding"></div>
8660
8661     <div class="entry">
8662       <div class="title">
8663         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
8664       </div>
8665       <div class="date">
8666         14th May 2010
8667       </div>
8668       <div class="body">
8669         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8670 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8671 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8672 expected, if I am to believe the
8673 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8674 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8675 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8676 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8677 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8678 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8679 version.</p>
8680
8681 More information about
8682 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8683 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8684 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8685 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8686
8687 <blockquote><pre>
8688 CONCURRENCY=none
8689 </pre></blockquote>
8690
8691 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8692 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8693 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8694 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8695
8696       </div>
8697       <div class="tags">
8698
8699
8700         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8701
8702
8703       </div>
8704     </div>
8705     <div class="padding"></div>
8706
8707     <div class="entry">
8708       <div class="title">
8709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
8710       </div>
8711       <div class="date">
8712         14th May 2010
8713       </div>
8714       <div class="body">
8715         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8716 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8717 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8718 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8719 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8720 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8721 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8722 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8723
8724 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8725 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8726 this on the collector host:</p>
8727
8728 <blockquote><pre>
8729 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8730 </pre></blockquote>
8731
8732 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8733 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8734
8735 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8736 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8737 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8738 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8739 written yet.</p>
8740
8741       </div>
8742       <div class="tags">
8743
8744
8745         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
8746
8747
8748       </div>
8749     </div>
8750     <div class="padding"></div>
8751
8752     <div class="entry">
8753       <div class="title">
8754         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8755       </div>
8756       <div class="date">
8757         13th May 2010
8758       </div>
8759       <div class="body">
8760         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8761 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8762 has been
8763 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8764
8765 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8766 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8767 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8768 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8769 based boot system.  Tollef is
8770 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8771 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8772 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8773 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8774 at the moment do not.</p>
8775
8776 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8777 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8778 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8779 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8780 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8781 way forward.</p>
8782
8783 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8784 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8785 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8786 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8787 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8788 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8789 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8790 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8791 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8792
8793       </div>
8794       <div class="tags">
8795
8796
8797         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8798
8799
8800       </div>
8801     </div>
8802     <div class="padding"></div>
8803
8804     <div class="entry">
8805       <div class="title">
8806         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
8807       </div>
8808       <div class="date">
8809          6th May 2010
8810       </div>
8811       <div class="body">
8812         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8813 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8814 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8815 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8816 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8817 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8818 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8819
8820 <blockquote><pre>
8821 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8822 </pre></blockquote>
8823
8824 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8825 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8826 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8827 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8828 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8829 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8830 make this happen.</p>
8831
8832 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8833 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8834 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8835 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8836 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8837
8838 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8839 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8840 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8841 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8842
8843 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8844 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8845 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8846 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8847
8848       </div>
8849       <div class="tags">
8850
8851
8852         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8853
8854
8855       </div>
8856     </div>
8857     <div class="padding"></div>
8858
8859     <div class="entry">
8860       <div class="title">
8861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
8862       </div>
8863       <div class="date">
8864         27th July 2009
8865       </div>
8866       <div class="body">
8867         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8868 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8869 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8870 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8871 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8872 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8873 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8874
8875 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8876 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8877 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8878
8879       </div>
8880       <div class="tags">
8881
8882
8883         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8884
8885
8886       </div>
8887     </div>
8888     <div class="padding"></div>
8889
8890     <div class="entry">
8891       <div class="title">
8892         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8893       </div>
8894       <div class="date">
8895         22nd July 2009
8896       </div>
8897       <div class="body">
8898         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8899 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8900 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8901 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8902 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8903 the package up to date.</p>
8904
8905 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8906 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8907 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8908 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8909 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8910 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8911 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8912 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8913 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8914 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8915 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8916 working on the future release.</p>
8917
8918 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8919 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8920
8921       </div>
8922       <div class="tags">
8923
8924
8925         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8926
8927
8928       </div>
8929     </div>
8930     <div class="padding"></div>
8931
8932     <div class="entry">
8933       <div class="title">
8934         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8935       </div>
8936       <div class="date">
8937         24th June 2009
8938       </div>
8939       <div class="body">
8940         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8941 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8942 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8943 funded
8944 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8945 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8946 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8947 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8948 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8949 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8950
8951 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8952 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8953 boot:</p>
8954
8955 <ul>
8956
8957 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8958
8959 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8960    clock is in UTC.</li>
8961
8962 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8963    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8964    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8965
8966 </ul>
8967
8968 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8969 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8970 Villegas</a>.
8971
8972 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8973 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8974 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8975 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8976 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8977 using this.</p>
8978
8979 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8980 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8981 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8982 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8983 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8984 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8985 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8986
8987       </div>
8988       <div class="tags">
8989
8990
8991         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8992
8993
8994       </div>
8995     </div>
8996     <div class="padding"></div>
8997
8998     <div class="entry">
8999       <div class="title">
9000         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
9001       </div>
9002       <div class="date">
9003         17th May 2009
9004       </div>
9005       <div class="body">
9006         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
9007 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
9008 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
9009 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
9010 dager siden kom
9011 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
9012 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
9013 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
9014 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
9015 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
9016
9017 <blockquote>
9018 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
9019 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
9020 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
9021 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
9022 </blockquote>
9023
9024 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
9025 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
9026 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
9027 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
9028 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
9029
9030 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
9031 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
9032 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
9033
9034       </div>
9035       <div class="tags">
9036
9037
9038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
9039
9040
9041       </div>
9042     </div>
9043     <div class="padding"></div>
9044
9045     <div class="entry">
9046       <div class="title">
9047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
9048       </div>
9049       <div class="date">
9050          7th May 2009
9051       </div>
9052       <div class="body">
9053         <p>Kom over
9054 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
9055 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
9056 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
9057 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
9058 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
9059 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
9060 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
9061
9062       </div>
9063       <div class="tags">
9064
9065
9066         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9067
9068
9069       </div>
9070     </div>
9071     <div class="padding"></div>
9072
9073     <div class="entry">
9074       <div class="title">
9075         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
9076       </div>
9077       <div class="date">
9078          2nd May 2009
9079       </div>
9080       <div class="body">
9081         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
9082 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
9083 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
9084 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
9085 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
9086 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
9087 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
9088 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
9089 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
9090 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
9091 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
9092 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
9093 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
9094 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
9095 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
9096 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
9097 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
9098 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
9099 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
9100 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
9101
9102 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
9103 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
9104 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
9105 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
9106 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
9107 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
9108 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
9109 betydelige.</p>
9110
9111       </div>
9112       <div class="tags">
9113
9114
9115         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
9116
9117
9118       </div>
9119     </div>
9120     <div class="padding"></div>
9121
9122     <div class="entry">
9123       <div class="title">
9124         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
9125       </div>
9126       <div class="date">
9127          2nd May 2009
9128       </div>
9129       <div class="body">
9130         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
9131 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
9132 do not yet know them.</p>
9133
9134 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
9135 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
9136 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
9137 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
9138 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
9139 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
9140 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
9141 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
9142 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
9143 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
9144 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
9145
9146 <p>The second one is
9147 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
9148 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
9149 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
9150 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
9151 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
9152 and the company behind it is running
9153 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
9154 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
9155 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
9156 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
9157 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
9158 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
9159 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
9160 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
9161
9162 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
9163 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
9164 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
9165 surrounded by today.</p>
9166
9167       </div>
9168       <div class="tags">
9169
9170
9171         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9172
9173
9174       </div>
9175     </div>
9176     <div class="padding"></div>
9177
9178     <div class="entry">
9179       <div class="title">
9180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
9181       </div>
9182       <div class="date">
9183         28th April 2009
9184       </div>
9185       <div class="body">
9186         <p>Julien Blache
9187 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
9188 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
9189 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9190 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9191 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
9192 properties.</p>
9193
9194       </div>
9195       <div class="tags">
9196
9197
9198         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9199
9200
9201       </div>
9202     </div>
9203     <div class="padding"></div>
9204
9205     <div class="entry">
9206       <div class="title">
9207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
9208       </div>
9209       <div class="date">
9210         30th March 2009
9211       </div>
9212       <div class="body">
9213         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9214 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
9215 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9216 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9217 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9218 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9219 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9220 application.</p>
9221
9222 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9223 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
9224 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9225 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
9226 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9227 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9228 blocked from doing so.</p>
9229
9230 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9231 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9232 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9233 requirements change.</p>
9234
9235 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9236 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9237 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
9238
9239       </div>
9240       <div class="tags">
9241
9242
9243         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
9244
9245
9246       </div>
9247     </div>
9248     <div class="padding"></div>
9249
9250     <div class="entry">
9251       <div class="title">
9252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
9253       </div>
9254       <div class="date">
9255         29th March 2009
9256       </div>
9257       <div class="body">
9258         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9259 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
9260 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9261 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
9262 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9263 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
9264 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9265 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
9266 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9267 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
9268 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
9269 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9270 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
9271 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
9272 now. :)</p>
9273
9274       </div>
9275       <div class="tags">
9276
9277
9278         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9279
9280
9281       </div>
9282     </div>
9283     <div class="padding"></div>
9284
9285     <div class="entry">
9286       <div class="title">
9287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
9288       </div>
9289       <div class="date">
9290         29th March 2009
9291       </div>
9292       <div class="body">
9293         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9294 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9295 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
9296 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
9297 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9298 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
9299
9300 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
9301 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9302 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9303 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
9304 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9305 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9306 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9307 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
9308 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9309 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9310 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9311 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
9312 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
9313
9314 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9315 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9316 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9317 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
9318
9319 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9320 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
9321
9322 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9323 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
9324 new IETF work group?</p>
9325
9326       </div>
9327       <div class="tags">
9328
9329
9330         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9331
9332
9333       </div>
9334     </div>
9335     <div class="padding"></div>
9336
9337     <div class="entry">
9338       <div class="title">
9339         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9340       </div>
9341       <div class="date">
9342         15th February 2009
9343       </div>
9344       <div class="body">
9345         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9346 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9347 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9348 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9349 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9350 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9351 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9352 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9353 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9354 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9355 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9356 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9357
9358       </div>
9359       <div class="tags">
9360
9361
9362         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
9363
9364
9365       </div>
9366     </div>
9367     <div class="padding"></div>
9368
9369     <div class="entry">
9370       <div class="title">
9371         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
9372       </div>
9373       <div class="date">
9374          7th December 2008
9375       </div>
9376       <div class="body">
9377         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9378 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9379 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9380 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9381 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9382 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9383 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9384 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9385
9386 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9387 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9388 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9389 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9390 of these cards.</p>
9391
9392       </div>
9393       <div class="tags">
9394
9395
9396         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
9397
9398
9399       </div>
9400     </div>
9401     <div class="padding"></div>
9402
9403     <div class="entry">
9404       <div class="title">
9405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
9406       </div>
9407       <div class="date">
9408         25th November 2008
9409       </div>
9410       <div class="body">
9411         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9412 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9413 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9414 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9415 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9416 notes are available on
9417 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9418 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9419 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9420 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9421 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9422 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9423 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9424 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9425 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9426
9427 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9428 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9429
9430       </div>
9431       <div class="tags">
9432
9433
9434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9435
9436
9437       </div>
9438     </div>
9439     <div class="padding"></div>
9440
9441     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
9442     <div id="sidebar">
9443
9444
9445
9446 <h2>Archive</h2>
9447 <ul>
9448
9449 <li>2015
9450 <ul>
9451
9452 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9453
9454 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9455
9456 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9457
9458 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9459
9460 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9461
9462 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9463
9464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
9465
9466 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9467
9468 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
9469
9470 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9471
9472 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
9473
9474 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9475
9476 </ul></li>
9477
9478 <li>2014
9479 <ul>
9480
9481 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9482
9483 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9484
9485 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9486
9487 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9488
9489 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9490
9491 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9492
9493 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9494
9495 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9496
9497 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9498
9499 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9500
9501 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9502
9503 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9504
9505 </ul></li>
9506
9507 <li>2013
9508 <ul>
9509
9510 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9511
9512 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9513
9514 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9515
9516 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9517
9518 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9519
9520 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9521
9522 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9523
9524 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9525
9526 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9527
9528 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9529
9530 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9531
9532 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9533
9534 </ul></li>
9535
9536 <li>2012
9537 <ul>
9538
9539 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9540
9541 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9542
9543 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9544
9545 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9546
9547 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9548
9549 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9550
9551 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9552
9553 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9554
9555 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9556
9557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9558
9559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9560
9561 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9562
9563 </ul></li>
9564
9565 <li>2011
9566 <ul>
9567
9568 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9569
9570 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9571
9572 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9573
9574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9575
9576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9577
9578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9579
9580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9581
9582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9583
9584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9585
9586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9587
9588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9589
9590 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9591
9592 </ul></li>
9593
9594 <li>2010
9595 <ul>
9596
9597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9598
9599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9600
9601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9602
9603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9604
9605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9606
9607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9608
9609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9610
9611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9612
9613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9614
9615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9616
9617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9618
9619 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9620
9621 </ul></li>
9622
9623 <li>2009
9624 <ul>
9625
9626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9627
9628 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9629
9630 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9631
9632 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9633
9634 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9635
9636 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9637
9638 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9639
9640 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9641
9642 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9643
9644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9645
9646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9647
9648 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9649
9650 </ul></li>
9651
9652 <li>2008
9653 <ul>
9654
9655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9656
9657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9658
9659 </ul></li>
9660
9661 </ul>
9662
9663
9664
9665 <h2>Tags</h2>
9666 <ul>
9667
9668  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9669
9670  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9671
9672  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9673
9674  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9675
9676  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
9677
9678  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9679
9680  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9681
9682  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9683
9684  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (114)</a></li>
9685
9686  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (154)</a></li>
9687
9688  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9689
9690  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9691
9692  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (20)</a></li>
9693
9694  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9695
9696  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (296)</a></li>
9697
9698  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
9699
9700  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9701
9702  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (25)</a></li>
9703
9704  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9705
9706  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
9707
9708  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
9709
9710  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
9711
9712  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9713
9714  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9715
9716  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9717
9718  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9719
9720  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9721
9722  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9723
9724  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9725
9726  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (36)</a></li>
9727
9728  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (272)</a></li>
9729
9730  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
9731
9732  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (22)</a></li>
9733
9734  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9735
9736  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (58)</a></li>
9737
9738  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (92)</a></li>
9739
9740  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9741
9742  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9743
9744  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9745
9746  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9747
9748  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9749
9750  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9751
9752  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9753
9754  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9755
9756  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (44)</a></li>
9757
9758  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9759
9760  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9761
9762  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
9763
9764  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9765
9766  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
9767
9768  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (36)</a></li>
9769
9770  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9771
9772  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9773
9774  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9775
9776  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (54)</a></li>
9777
9778  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9779
9780  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (37)</a></li>
9781
9782 </ul>
9783
9784
9785     </div>
9786     <p style="text-align: right">
9787  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9788 </p>
9789
9790   </body>
9791 </html>