1 <?xml version=
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2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Techno TV broadcasting live across Norway and the Internet (#debconf16, #nuug) on @frikanalen
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon,
1 Aug
2016 10:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Did you know there is a TV channel broadcasting talks from DebConf
15 16 across an entire country? Or that there is a TV channel
16 broadcasting talks by or about
17 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625529/
">Linus Torvalds
</a
>,
18 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625599/
">Tor
</a
>,
19 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
624019/
">OpenID
</A
>,
20 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625624/
">Common Lisp
</a
>,
21 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625446/
">Civic Tech
</a
>,
22 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625090/
">EFF founder John Barlow
</a
>,
23 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625432/
">how to make
3D
24 printer electronics
</a
> and many more fascinating topics? It works
25 using only free software (all of it
26 <a href=
"http://github.com/Frikanalen
">available from Github
</a
>), and
27 is administrated using a web browser and a web API.
</p
>
29 <p
>The TV channel is the Norwegian open channel
30 <a href=
"http://www.frikanalen.no/
">Frikanalen
</a
>, and I am involved
31 via
<a href=
"https://www.nuug.no/
">the NUUG member association
</a
> in
32 running and developing the software for the channel. The channel is
33 organised as a member organisation where its members can upload and
34 broadcast what they want (think of it as Youtube for national
35 broadcasting television). Individuals can broadcast too. The time
36 slots are handled on a first come, first serve basis. Because the
37 channel have almost no viewers and very few active members, we can
38 experiment with TV technology without too much flack when we make
39 mistakes. And thanks to the few active members, most of the slots on
40 the schedule are free. I see this as an opportunity to spread
41 knowledge about technology and free software, and have a script I run
42 regularly to fill up all the open slots the next few days with
43 technology related video. The end result is a channel I like to
44 describe as Techno TV - filled with interesting talks and
45 presentations.
</p
>
47 <p
>It is available on channel
50 on the Norwegian national digital TV
48 network (RiksTV). It is also available as a multicast stream on
49 Uninett. And finally, it is available as
50 <a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/
">a WebM unicast stream
</a
> from
51 Frikanalen and NUUG. Check it out. :)
</p
>
56 <title>Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot
</title>
57 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html
</link>
58 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html
</guid>
59 <pubDate>Thu,
7 Jul
2016 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
60 <description><p
>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
61 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
62 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
63 <a href=
"https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
">an
64 hardened Android installation
</a
> from the Tor project blog on a
65 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
66 microphone The initial idea had been to just
67 <a href=
"http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace
">install
68 CyanogenMod on it
</a
>, but did not quite find time to start on it
69 until a few days ago.
</p
>
71 <p
>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (
1) Boot into the boot
72 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (
2) select
73 'fastboot
' before (
3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
74 machine, (
4) request the device identifier token by running
'fastboot
75 oem get_identifier_token
', (
5) request the device unlocking key using
76 the
<a href=
"http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
">HTC developer web
77 site
</a
> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.
</p
>
79 <p
>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version
2.00.0029
80 or newer, and the device I was working on had
2.00.0027. This
81 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
82 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
83 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
84 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
85 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
88 <p
>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
89 <a href=
"http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00
.0029.exe
">the
90 windows binary for HTC Desire HD
</a
> downloaded as
'the RUU
' from HTC.
91 For this there is is
<a href=
"https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/
">a github
92 project named unruu
</a
> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
93 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
94 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
95 devices it would work for.
</p
>
97 <p
>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
98 followed some instructions
99 <a href=
"http://www.htc1guru.com/
2013/
09/new-ruu-zips-posted/
">available
100 from HTC1Guru.com
</a
>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
101 machine with Debian testing:
</p
>
104 adb reboot-bootloader
105 fastboot oem rebootRUU
106 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
107 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
109 </pre
></p
>
111 <p
>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
112 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
113 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
114 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
117 <p
>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
118 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
122 fastboot oem get_identifier_token
2>&1 | sed
's/(bootloader) //
'
125 <p
>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
129 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
130 </pre
></p
>
132 <p
>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
133 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
134 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
135 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
136 install
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/
">Debian
</a
> on it. :)
</p
>
141 <title>How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)
</title>
142 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html
</link>
143 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html
</guid>
144 <pubDate>Sun,
3 Jul
2016 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
145 <description><p
>For a while now, I have wanted to test
146 <a href=
"https://whispersystems.org/
">the Signal app
</a
>, as it is
147 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
148 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
149 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
150 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
151 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
152 Github source, compared it to the source in
153 <a href=
"https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US
">the
154 Signal Chrome app
</a
> available from the Chrome web store, applied
155 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
156 asked for the hidden
"register without a smart phone
" form. Here is
157 the recipe how I did it.
</p
>
159 <p
>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
162 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
165 <p
>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
166 able to talk to other Signal users:
</p
>
169 cat
&lt;
&lt;EOF | patch -p0
170 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
171 --- ./js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
172 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
177 - var SERVER_URL =
'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org
';
178 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL =
'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com
';
179 + var SERVER_URL =
'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:
4433';
180 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL =
'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com
';
182 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
183 if (messageReceiver) {
184 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
185 --- ./js/expire.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
186 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
189 'use strict
';
190 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
191 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
1474492690000;
193 window.extension = window.extension || {};
198 <p
>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
199 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
200 It is set
90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
201 The value is seconds since
1970 times
1000, as far as I can tell.
</p
>
203 <p
>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
204 script to launch Signal in Chromium.
</p
>
211 --proxy-server=
"socks://localhost:
9050" \
212 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
215 <p
> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
216 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
217 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
218 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
219 connections if they use source IP address.
</p
>
221 <p
>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
222 "Standalone Registration
" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
223 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
224 Chromium debugging tool, visited the
'Console
' tab and wrote
225 'extension.install(
"standalone
")
' on the console prompt to get the
226 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
227 pressed
'Call
'.
5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
228 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
229 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
230 Signal from my laptop.
232 <p
>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
233 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
234 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
235 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
236 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
237 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
238 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
239 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
240 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
241 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
242 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
243 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.
</p
>
248 <title>The new
"best
" multimedia player in Debian?
</title>
249 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html
</link>
250 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html
</guid>
251 <pubDate>Mon,
6 Jun
2016 12:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
252 <description><p
>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
253 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html
">which
254 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
255 MIME types
</a
>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
256 the various players claimed support for. The range was from
55 to
130
257 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
258 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
259 their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
260 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.
</p
>
262 <p
>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
263 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
264 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
265 favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
266 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
267 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport
">Multimedia
268 player MIME type support status
</a
> Debian wiki page.
</p
>
270 <p
>The new
"best
" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
271 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
272 kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
273 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
274 toten and parole.
</p
>
276 <p
>A sad observation is that only
14 MIME types are listed as
277 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
278 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
279 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
280 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
281 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
282 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
283 players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
289 <title>A program should be able to open its own files on Linux
</title>
290 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html
</link>
291 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html
</guid>
292 <pubDate>Sun,
5 Jun
2016 08:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
293 <description><p
>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
294 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
295 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
296 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
297 the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
298 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
299 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
300 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
301 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
302 present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
303 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
304 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
305 be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
306 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
307 shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem
&ndash;
308 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
309 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
310 program to make slides. The point I
'm trying to make is that we
311 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
312 embarrassing to its developers if it can
't.
</p
>
314 <p
>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
315 files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
316 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
317 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
318 browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
319 such file. I tracked down the cause being
<tt
>file --mime-type
</tt
>
320 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
321 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
322 <a href=
"http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=
382">file to change its
323 behavour
</a
> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
324 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
325 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
326 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
327 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.
</p
>
329 <p
>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
330 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
331 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
332 (*.rg). I
've reported
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
825993">the
333 rosegarden problem to BTS
</a
> and a fix is commited to git and will be
334 included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
335 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
336 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.
</p
>
338 <p
>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
339 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
340 <tt
>file --mime-type
</tt
> mentioned above, and the content of the
341 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
342 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
343 information is collected from
344 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/
">the
345 desktop files
</a
> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
346 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
347 activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
348 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
349 selecting the wanted one using
'Open with
' or similar. In general
350 this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
352 <a href=
"http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml
">a
353 MIME type registered with IANA
</a
>), file and/or the shared MIME
354 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
355 type in its list of supported MIME types.
</p
>
357 <p
>The
<tt
>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml
</tt
> entry for
358 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec
">the
359 Shared MIME database
</a
> look like this:
</p
>
361 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
362 &lt;?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"UTF-
8"?
&gt;
363 &lt;mime-info xmlns=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info
"&gt;
364 &lt;mime-type type=
"audio/x-rosegarden
"&gt;
365 &lt;sub-class-of type=
"application/x-gzip
"/
&gt;
366 &lt;comment
&gt;Rosegarden project file
&lt;/comment
&gt;
367 &lt;glob pattern=
"*.rg
"/
&gt;
368 &lt;/mime-type
&gt;
369 &lt;/mime-info
&gt;
370 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
372 <p
>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
373 (it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
374 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
375 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.
</p
>
377 <p
>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
378 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
379 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:
</p
>
381 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
382 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
383 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
384 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
386 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
388 <p
>The fix was to add
"audio/x-rosegarden;
" at the end of the
389 MimeType= line.
</p
>
391 <p
>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
392 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
393 <tt
>file --mime-type
</tt
> for the file, ensure the file ending and
394 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
395 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
396 support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
402 <title>Tor - from its creators mouth
11 years ago
</title>
403 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html
</link>
404 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html
</guid>
405 <pubDate>Sat,
28 May
2016 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
406 <description><p
>A little more than
11 years ago, one of the creators of Tor, and
407 the current President of
<a href=
"https://www.torproject.org/
">the Tor
408 project
</a
>, Roger Dingledine, gave a talk for the members of the
409 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">Norwegian Unix User group
</a
> (NUUG). A
410 video of the talk was recorded, and today, thanks to the great help
411 from David Noble, I finally was able to publish the video of the talk
412 on Frikanalen, the Norwegian open channel TV station where NUUG
413 currently publishes its talks. You can
414 <a href=
"http://frikanalen.no/se
">watch the live stream using a web
415 browser
</a
> with WebM support, or check out the recording on the video
416 on demand page for the talk
417 "<a href=
"http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/
625599">Tor: Anonymous
418 communication for the US Department of Defence...and you.
</a
>".
</p
>
420 <p
>Here is the video included for those of you using browsers with
421 HTML video and Ogg Theora support:
</p
>
423 <p
><video width=
"70%
" poster=
"http://simula.gunkies.org/media/
625599/large_thumb/
20050421-tor-frikanalen.jpg
" controls
>
424 <source src=
"http://simula.gunkies.org/media/
625599/theora/
20050421-tor-frikanalen.ogv
" type=
"video/ogg
"/
>
425 </video
></p
>
427 <p
>I guess the gist of the talk can be summarised quite simply: If you
428 want to help the military in USA (and everyone else), use Tor. :)
</p
>
433 <title>Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version
0.23 available in Debian unstable
</title>
434 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html
</link>
435 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html
</guid>
436 <pubDate>Wed,
25 May
2016 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
437 <description><p
><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram
">The isenkram
438 system
</a
> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
439 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
440 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
441 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
442 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
443 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
444 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
445 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
446 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
447 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
448 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p
>
450 <p
>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
451 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
452 is going away and is generally being replaced by
453 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/
">PackageKit
</a
>,
454 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
455 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
456 rewrite finally took place. I
've just uploaded a new version of
457 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
458 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
459 install the
<tt
>isenkram
</tt
> package and insert some hardware dongle
460 and see if it is recognised.
</p
>
462 <p
>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
463 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
464 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p
>
466 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
482 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
484 <p
>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
485 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
486 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/
">the
487 cross distribution appstream system
</a
>.
489 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/
">previous
490 blog posts about isenkram
</a
> to learn how to do that.
</p
>
495 <title>Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian
</title>
496 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html
</link>
497 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html
</guid>
498 <pubDate>Mon,
23 May
2016 09:
35:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
499 <description><p
>Yesterday I updated the
500 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats
501 package in Debian
</a
> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
502 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
503 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
504 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
505 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
506 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
507 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
508 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
509 graph window pop up as expected.
</p
>
511 <p
>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
512 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
513 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
514 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
517 <p align=
"center
"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2016-
05-
23-battery-stats-rate.png
"/
></p
>
519 <p
>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
520 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
521 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
522 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
524 <p align=
"center
"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2016-
05-
23-battery-stats-history.png
"/
></p
>
526 <p
>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
527 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
528 shrinking. :(
</p
>
530 <p
>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
531 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
532 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
533 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
534 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
537 <p
>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
539 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats
</a
>
540 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
541 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
542 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats
">github
</a
>.
543 Patches are very welcome.
</p
>
545 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
546 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
547 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
552 <title>French edition of Lawrence Lessigs book Cultura Libre on Amazon and Barnes
& Noble
</title>
553 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html
</link>
554 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html
</guid>
555 <pubDate>Sat,
21 May
2016 10:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
556 <description><p
>A few weeks ago the French paperback edition of Lawrence Lessigs
557 2004 book Cultura Libre was published. Today I noticed that the book
558 is now available from book stores. You can now buy it from
559 <a href=
"http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Libre-French-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/
8269018260">Amazon
</a
>
561 <a href=
"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/culture-libre-lawrence-lessig/
1123776705">Barnes
562 & Noble
</a
> ($?) and as always from
563 <a href=
"http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-
22645082.html
">Lulu.com
</a
>
564 ($
19.99). The revenue is donated to the Creative Commons project. If
565 you buy from Lulu.com, they currently get $
10.59, while if you buy
566 from one of the book stores most of the revenue go to the book store
567 and the Creative Commons project get much (not sure how much
570 <p
>I was a bit surprised to discover that there is a kindle edition
571 sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC on Amazon. Not quite sure how
572 that edition was created, but if you want to download a electronic
573 edition (PDF, EPUB, Mobi) generated from the same files used to create
574 the paperback edition, they are
575 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">available
576 from github
</a
>.
</p
>
581 <title>I want the courts to be involved before the police can hijack a news site DNS domain (#domstolkontroll)
</title>
582 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html
</link>
583 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html
</guid>
584 <pubDate>Thu,
19 May
2016 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
585 <description><p
>I just donated to the
586 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml
">NUUG defence
587 "fond
"</a
> to fund the effort in Norway to get the seizure of the news
588 site popcorn-time.no tested in court. I hope everyone that agree with
589 me will do the same.
</p
>
591 <p
>Would you be worried if you knew the police in your country could
592 hijack DNS domains of news sites covering free software system without
593 talking to a judge first? I am. What if the free software system
594 combined search engine lookups, bittorrent downloads and video playout
595 and was called Popcorn Time? Would that affect your view? It still
596 make me worried.
</p
>
598 <p
>In March
2016, the Norwegian police seized (as in forced NORID to
599 change the IP address pointed to by it to one controlled by the
600 police) the DNS domain popcorn-time.no, without any supervision from
601 the courts. I did not know about the web site back then, and assumed
602 the courts had been involved, and was very surprised when I discovered
603 that the police had hijacked the DNS domain without asking a judge for
604 permission first. I was even more surprised when I had a look at
605 <a href=
"https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://popcorn-time.no
">the web
606 site content on the Internet Archive
</A
>, and only found news coverage
607 about Popcorn Time, not any material published without the right
608 holders permissions.
</p
>
610 <p
>The seizure was widely covered in the Norwegian press (see for
611 example
<a href=
"http://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Naeringsliv/
2016/
03/Popcorn-time.no-beslaglagt-av-OEkokrim
">Hegnar Online
</a
> and
612 <a href=
"http://itavisen.no/
2016/
03/
08/okokrim-har-beslaglagt-popcorn-time-no/
">ITavisen
<a/
>
614 <a href=
"http://www.nrk.no/kultur/okokrim-gar-til-aksjon-mot-popcorn-time-
1.12842452">NRK
</a
>),
615 at first due to the press release sent out by Økokrim, but then based
617 <a href=
"http://blogg.torvund.net/
2016/
03/
09/okokrims-beslag-i-domenet-popcorn-time-no/
">protests
618 from the law professor Olav Torvund
</a
> and
619 <a href=
"http://www.klassekampen.no/article/
20160311/ARTICLE/
160319995">lawyer
620 Jon Wessel-Aas
</a
>. It even got some
621 <a href=
"https://torrentfreak.com/norwegian-authorities-sued-over-popcorn-time-domain-seizure-
160418/
">coverage
622 on TorrentFreak
</a
>.
</p
>
625 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html
">
626 wrote about the case a month ago
</a
>, when the
627 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a
> (NUUG),
628 where I am an active member, decided to ask the courts to test this seizure.
629 The request was denied, but NUUG and its co-requestor EFN have not
630 given up, and now they are rallying for support to get the seizure
631 legally challenged. They accept both bank and Bitcoin transfer for
632 those that want to support the request.
</p
>
634 <p
>If you as me believe news sites about free software should not be
635 censored, even if the free software have both legal and illegal
636 applications, and that DNS hijacking should be tested by the courts, I
637 suggest you
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml
">show
638 your support by donating to NUUG
</a
>.
</a
>