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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=
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"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>How to test if a laptop is working with Linux
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Dec
2010 14:
55:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
15 <p
>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
16 href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of oslo
</a
> testing if the new
17 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
18 years the university have organized shared bid of a few thousand
19 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
20 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
21 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
22 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
25 <p
>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
26 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
27 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
28 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
29 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
30 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
31 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
32 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p
>
34 <p
>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
35 I perform on a new model.
</p
>
39 <li
>Is PXE installation working? I
'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
40 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
41 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li
>
43 <li
>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
44 installation, X.org is working.
</li
>
46 <li
>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
47 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
48 reported by the program.
</li
>
50 <li
>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
51 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
52 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
53 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
54 normally test this by playing
55 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20101012-chef/
">a HTML5
56 video
</a
> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li
>
58 <li
>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
59 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
61 <li
>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
62 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
64 <li
>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
65 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li
>
67 <li
>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
68 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
71 <li
>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
72 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
73 notice this.
</li
>
75 <li
>For laptops, is suspecd/hibernate working? I
'm testing if the
76 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
79 <li
>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
80 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
81 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
82 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
85 <li
>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
86 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
87 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
92 <p
>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
93 for the HP machines I am testing. I
'm not done yet, so I will report
94 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
95 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
96 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
97 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
98 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the framerate than
99 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p
>
104 <title>Some thoughts on BitCoins
</title>
105 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</link>
106 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</guid>
107 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Dec
2010 15:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
109 <p
>As I continue to explore
110 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">BitCoin
</a
>, I
've starting to wonder
111 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
112 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p
>
114 <p
>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
115 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
116 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
117 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
118 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
119 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
120 all transactions. There I can see that my address
121 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
>
122 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
123 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a
>
124 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
125 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A
>
126 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
127 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
128 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
129 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
130 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I
'm told
131 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
132 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
133 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p
>
135 <p
>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
136 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
137 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
138 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
139 If the Skolelinux foundation
140 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html
">SLX
141 Debian Labs
</a
>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
142 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
143 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
144 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
145 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
146 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
147 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p
>
149 <p
>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
150 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
151 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
152 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
153 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
154 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
155 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
156 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
157 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
158 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
159 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I
'm sure they
160 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
161 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
162 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
163 currencies.
</p
>
165 <p
>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
166 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
167 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
168 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The
"winner
" get
50
169 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
170 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
171 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
172 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
174 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/
">BitCoin Pool
</a
>
175 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
176 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
177 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
180 <p
>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
181 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi
">interesting
182 criticism
</a
> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
183 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
184 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p
>
189 <title>Pornoskannerne på flyplassene bedrer visst ikke sikkerheten
</title>
190 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pornoskannerne_p___flyplassene_bedrer_visst_ikke_sikkerheten.html
</link>
191 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pornoskannerne_p___flyplassene_bedrer_visst_ikke_sikkerheten.html
</guid>
192 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Dec
2010 10:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
194 <p
>Via
<a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
12/
10/links-for-
2010-
12-
10/
">en
195 blogpost fra Simon Phipps i går
</a
>, fant jeg en referanse til
196 <a href=
"http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/
2010/dec/
9/exposed-tsas-x-rated-scanner-fraud/
">en
197 artikkel i Washington Times
</a
> som igjen refererer til en artikkel i
198 det fagfellevurderte tidsskriftet Journal of Transportation Security
200 "<a href=
"http://springerlink.com/content/g6620thk08679160/fulltext.html
">An
201 evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image
202 characteristics
</a
>" som enkelt konstaterer at
203 <a href=
"http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/?a=
2389&c=
124">pornoscannerne
</a
>
204 som kler av reisende på flyplasser ikke er i stand til å avsløre det
205 produsenten og amerikanske myndigheter sier de skal avsløre. Kort
206 sagt, de bedrer ikke sikkerheten. Reisende må altså la ansatte på
207 flyplasser
<a href=
"http://www.thousandsstandingaround.org/
">se dem
208 nakne eller la seg beføle i skrittet
</a
> uten grunn. Jeg vil
209 fortsette å nekte å bruke disse pornoskannerne, unngå flyplasser der
210 de er tatt i bruk, og reise med andre transportmidler enn fly hvis jeg
216 <title>Martin Bekkelund: En stille bønn om Datalagringsdirektivet
</title>
217 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Martin_Bekkelund__En_stille_b__nn_om_Datalagringsdirektivet.html
</link>
218 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Martin_Bekkelund__En_stille_b__nn_om_Datalagringsdirektivet.html
</guid>
219 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Dec
2010 21:
25:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
221 <p
><a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/
">Martin Bekkelund
</a
> ved
222 <a href=
"http://www.friprog.no/
">friprog-senteret
</a
> har skrevet
224 <a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/
2010/
12/
09/en-stille-bonn/
">korte
225 oppsummering
</a
> rundt datalagringsdirektivet, som jeg videreformidler
228 <p
><blockquote
><strong
>Det pågår i disse dager en intens diskusjon om
229 innføring av Datalagringsdirektivet (
<acronym
230 title=
"Datalagringsdirektivet
">DLD
</acronym
>) i norsk rett. Kanskje
231 har du gjort deg opp en mening, kanskje er du usikker. I begge
232 tilfeller ber jeg deg lese videre.
</strong
></p
>
234 <p
>Samtlige fagmiljøer, både i Norge og EU, har konkludert med at
235 <acronym title=
"Datalagringsdirektivet
">DLD
</acronym
> ikke bør
236 innføres på nåværende tidspunkt. Den tekniske kvaliteten på direktivet
237 er dårlig, det griper uforholdsmessig inn i personvernet, det har
238 store mangler og viktige spørsmål som hvem som skal ha tilgang og
239 hvordan data skal lagres er fortsatt uavklart.
</p
>
242 <li
><a href=
"http://ikt-norge.no/norge-kan-slippe-datalagringsdirektivet/
">EU-ekspertene sier
</a
> at konsekvensene av å benytte vetoretten er minimale
</li
>
243 <li
><a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/pages/
2281080/Deninternasjonalejuristkommisjon.pdf
">Juristene påpeker
</a
> at direktivet er i strid med EMK
</li
>
244 <li
><a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/
2010/
12/
06/kultur/debatt/kronikk/dld/personvern/
14594699/
">Datatilsynet sier
</a
> direktivet får store konsekvenser for personvernet og at direktivet er irreversibelt
</li
>
245 <li
><a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/?s=dld
">Teknologene sier
</a
> at sikker lagring ikke er mulig, at det er svært enkelt å omgå og mulig å manipulere data og produsere falske beviser
</li
>
246 <li
><a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/pages/
2281080/NJ_247460_1_P.pdf
">Pressen sier
</a
> nei av hensyn til kildevernet
</li
>
247 <li
>Det er store
<a href=
"http://tetzschner.blogspot.com/
2010/
03/den-tyske-forfatningsdomstol.html
">interne
</a
> <a href=
"http://stoppdld.no/
2010/
03/
02/datalagring-stoppet-av-tysk-forfatningsdomstol/
">stridigheter
</a
> i EU. Blant annet har den tyske forfatningsdomstolen funnet at måten
<acronym title=
"Datalagringsdirektivet
">DLD
</acronym
> er innført på er i strid med tysk grunnlov
</li
>
248 <li
>Alle de store
<a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/
2010/
12/
08/lokasjonsdata-og-datalagringsdirektivet/
">operatørene og tilbyderne sier nei
</a
>, av tekniske og personvernmessige årsaker
</li
>
251 <p
>Jeg liker å tro at jeg er en hyggelig fyr. Jeg har et rent
252 rulleblad, og med unntak av to fartsbøter har jeg aldri vært en byrde
253 for samfunnet. Det akter jeg å fortsette med. Det er mange som meg,
254 lovlydige, pliktoppfyllende borgere som aldri vil utgjøre en trussel
255 mot noe som helst. Vi synes derfor det er trist og sårende at all vår
256 atferd skal overvåkes døgnkontinuerlig.
</p
>
258 <p
><strong
>Understøttet av faglige vurderinger kan du trygt si nei til
259 <acronym title=
"Datalagringsdirektivet
">DLD
</acronym
>.
</strong
></p
>
261 <p
><a href=
"http://www.bekkelund.net/kontakt/
">Ta kontakt med meg
</a
>
262 hvis du har spørsmål om
<acronym
263 title=
"Datalagringsdirektivet
">DLD
</acronym
>, uansett hva det måtte
266 <p class=
"info
">Denne teksten er å anse som
<a
267 href=
"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
"><em
>Public
268 Domain
</em
></a
>. Spre den videre til alle som kan ha nytte av
270 </blockquote
></p
>
272 <p
>Siste
<a href=
"http://www.nettavisen.no/it/article3043918.ece
">melding
273 fra Nettavisen
</a
> er at regjeringen planlegger å fremme sitt forslag
274 til implementering av datalagringsdirektivet i morgen, i ly av
275 fredprisutdelingen for å få minst mulig pressedekning om saken. Vi
276 får snart se om det stemmer.
</p
>
281 <title>Student group continue the work on my Reprap
3D printer
</title>
282 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html
</link>
283 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html
</guid>
284 <pubDate>Thu,
9 Dec
2010 19:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
286 <p
>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
287 student assosiation
<a href=
"http://www.robotica.no/
">Robotica
288 Osloensis
</a
> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
289 get their own
3D printer. They wanted to learn from me based on my
290 work in the area. After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
291 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
292 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon. I look
293 forward to see how this goes. This monday their volunteer driver
294 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
295 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the
3D printer
296 operational.
</p
>
298 <p
>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
299 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational. I really look
300 forward to being able to print all the cool
3D designs published on
301 <a href=
"http://www.thingiverse.com/
">Thingiverse
</a
>. I even got
302 some
3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
303 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
304 very cool
3D scanner.
</p
>
309 <title>Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK
</title>
310 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html
</link>
311 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html
</guid>
312 <pubDate>Mon,
29 Nov
2010 18:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
314 <p
>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
315 <a href=
"http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/
2010-
12-
03-
05-Oslo
">development
316 gathering
</a
> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway. I
317 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
318 Squeeze release. The gathering is open for everyone interested in
319 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p
>
321 <p
>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
322 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
324 <a href=
"http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/
2010">General Assembly
325 for
2010</a
>. Membership is open for all, and currently there are
388
326 people registered as members. Last year
32 members cast their vote in
327 the memberdb based election system. I hope more people find time to
328 vote this year.
</p
>
333 <title>Why isn
't Debian Edu using VLC?
</title>
334 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</link>
335 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</guid>
336 <pubDate>Sat,
27 Nov
2010 11:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
338 <p
>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
339 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
340 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
341 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
342 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
343 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
344 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
345 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p
>
347 <p
>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
348 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
349 Edu/Skolelinux
</a
>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
350 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
351 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
352 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
353 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">last
354 tested the browser plugins
</a
> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
355 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
356 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
357 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P
>
359 <p
>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
360 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
361 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
362 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
363 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
364 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
365 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
366 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
367 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
368 what is going on.
</p
>
373 <title>DND hedrer overvåkning av barn med Rosingsprisen
</title>
374 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/DND_hedrer_overv__kning_av_barn_med_Rosingsprisen.html
</link>
375 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/DND_hedrer_overv__kning_av_barn_med_Rosingsprisen.html
</guid>
376 <pubDate>Tue,
23 Nov
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
378 <p
>Jeg registrerer med vond smak i munnen at Den Norske Dataforening
380 href=
"http://www.dataforeningen.no/hedret-med-rosingprisen
.4849070-
133913.html
">hedrer
381 overvåkning av barn med Rosingsprisen for kreativitet i år
</a
>. Jeg
382 er glad jeg nå er meldt ut av DND.
</p
>
384 <p
>Å elektronisk overvåke sine barn er ikke å gjøre dem en tjeneste,
385 men et overgrep mot individer i utvikling som bør læres opp til å ta
388 <p
>For å sitere Datatilsynets nye leder, Bjørn Erik Thon, i
389 <a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article174262.ece
">et intervju
390 med Computerworld Norge
</A
>:
</p
>
392 <p
><blockquote
>
393 - For alle som har barn, meg selv inkludert, er førstetanken at det
394 hadde vært fint å vite hvor barnet sitt er til enhver tid. Men ungene
395 har ikke godt av det. De er små individer som skal søke rundt og finne
396 sine små gjemmesteder og utvide horisonten, uten at foreldrene ser dem
397 i kortene. Det kan være fristende, men jeg ville ikke gått inn i
399 </blockquote
></p
>
401 <p
>Det er skremmende å se at DND mener en tjeneste som legger opp til
402 slike overgrep bør hedres. Å flytte oppveksten for barn inn i en
404 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
">Panopticon
</a
> er et
405 grovt overgrep og vil gjøre skade på barnenes utvikling, og foreldre
406 burde tenke seg godt om før de gir etter for sine instinkter her.
</p
>
408 <p
>Blipper-tjenesten får meg til å tenke på bøkene til
409 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Twelve_Hawks
">John Twelve
410 Hawks
</a
>, som forbilledlig beskriver hvordan et totalitært
411 overvåkningssamfunn bygges sakte men sikkert rundt oss, satt sammen av
412 gode intensjoner og manglende bevissthet om hvilke prinsipper et
413 liberalt demokrati er fundamentert på. Jeg har hatt stor glede av å
414 lese alle de tre bøkene.
</p
>
419 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove
</title>
420 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</link>
421 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</guid>
422 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
424 <p
>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
425 upgrade testing of the
426 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">Lenny
427 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a
> to do
<tt
>apt-get autoremove
</tt
> when using apt-get.
428 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
429 can now present the updated result from today:
</p
>
431 <p
>This is for Gnome:
</p
>
433 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
435 <blockquote
><p
>
447 freedesktop-sound-theme
449 gconf-defaults-service
464 gnome-desktop-environment
468 gnome-session-canberra
473 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
482 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
485 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
486 libboost-python1.42
.0
487 libboost-thread1.42
.0
489 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
491 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
498 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
513 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
518 libgtksourceview2.0-common
519 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
520 libmono-addins0.2-cil
522 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
523 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
525 libmono-security2.0-cil
526 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
527 libmono-system2.0-cil
530 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
541 libtelepathy-farsight0
550 nautilus-sendto-empathy
571 python-gtksourceview2
595 python-zope.interface
600 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
607 system-config-printer-udev
609 telepathy-mission-control-
5
620 </p
></blockquote
>
622 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
624 <blockquote
><p
>
630 fast-user-switch-applet
649 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
657 system-config-printer
662 </p
></blockquote
>
664 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
666 <blockquote
><p
>
667 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
668 </p
></blockquote
>
670 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
672 <blockquote
><p
>
674 </p
></blockquote
>
676 <p
>This is for KDE:
</p
>
678 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
680 <blockquote
><p
>
682 </p
></blockquote
>
684 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
686 <blockquote
><p
>
689 </p
></blockquote
>
691 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
693 <blockquote
><p
>
709 kdeartwork-theme-icon
713 kdebase-workspace-bin
714 kdebase-workspace-data
743 plasma-dataengines-workspace
745 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
746 plasma-runners-addons
747 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
748 plasma-scriptengine-python
749 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
750 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
751 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
753 plasma-wallpapers-addons
754 plasma-widget-folderview
755 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
759 xscreensaver-data-extra
761 xscreensaver-gl-extra
762 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
763 </p
></blockquote
>
765 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
767 <blockquote
><p
>
769 google-gadgets-common
792 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
801 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
803 libplasmagenericshell4
846 plasma-dataengines-addons
847 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
848 plasma-widget-lancelot
849 plasma-widgets-addons
850 plasma-widgets-workspace
854 update-notifier-common
855 </p
></blockquote
>
857 <p
>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
858 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
859 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
860 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p
>
865 <title>Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images
</title>
866 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</link>
867 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</guid>
868 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 11:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
870 <p
>Most of the computers in use by the
871 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a
>
872 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
873 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
874 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
875 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
876 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
877 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
878 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p
>
881 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
">a
882 nice recipe
</a
> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
883 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
884 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
885 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
886 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p
>
892 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
897 if [ -z
"$
1" ] ; then
898 echo
"Usage: $
0 &lt;hostname
&gt;
"
904 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
905 echo
"error: unable to find LVM volume for $host
"
909 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
910 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
911 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
912 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
915 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
916 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
918 parted $img mklabel msdos
919 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
920 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
921 parted $img set
1 boot on
924 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
927 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
928 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
929 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
932 losetup -d /dev/loop0
935 <p
>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
936 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p
>
938 <p
>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
939 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
940 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
941 seem to work just fine.
</p
>