blog/tags/debian/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="debian.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  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/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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         15th October 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
  32 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
  33 these. :)</p>
  34
  35 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
  36 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
  37 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
  38 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
  39 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
  40 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
  41 hope you will to. :)</p>
  42
  43 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
  44 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
  45 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
  46 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
  47 donated.  Are you next?</p>
  48
  49 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
  50 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
  51 statement under the heading
  52 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
  53 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
  54 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
  55 too.</p>
  56
  57       </div>
  58       <div class="tags">
  59
  60
  61         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>.
  62
  63
  64       </div>
  65     </div>
  66     <div class="padding"></div>
  67
  68     <div class="entry">
  69       <div class="title">
  70         <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>
  71       </div>
  72       <div class="date">
  73         27th September 2013
  74       </div>
  75       <div class="body">
  76         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
  77 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
  78 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
  79 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
  80
  81 <ul>
  82
  83 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
  84 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
  85
  86 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
  87 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
  88
  89 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
  90 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
  91 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
  92 (Youtube)</li>
  93
  94 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
  95 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
  96
  97 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
  98 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
  99
 100 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 101 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 102 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 103
 104 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 105 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 106 (Youtube)</li>
 107
 108 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 109 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 110
 111 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 112 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 113
 114 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 115 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 116 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 117
 118 </ul>
 119
 120 <p>A larger list is available from
 121 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 122 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 123
 124 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 125 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 126 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 127 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 128 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 129 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 130 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 131 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 132 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 133 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 134 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 135
 136       </div>
 137       <div class="tags">
 138
 139
 140         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>.
 141
 142
 143       </div>
 144     </div>
 145     <div class="padding"></div>
 146
 147     <div class="entry">
 148       <div class="title">
 149         <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>
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="date">
 152         10th September 2013
 153       </div>
 154       <div class="body">
 155         <p>I was introduced to the
 156 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 157 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 158 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 159 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 160 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 161 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 162 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 163 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 164
 165 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 166 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 167 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 168 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 169 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 170
 171 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 172 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 173 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 174 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 175 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 176 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 177 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 178 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 179 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 180 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 181 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 182 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 183 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 184 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 185 missing in Debian).</p>
 186
 187 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 188 scripts
 189 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 190 and a administrative web interface
 191 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 192 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 193 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 194 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 195 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 196 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 197 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 198 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 199 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 200 this is really working yet, see
 201 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 202 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 203 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 204 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 205 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 206 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 207 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 208
 209 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 210 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 211 at.</p>
 212
 213 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 214
 215 <ol>
 216
 217 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 218 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 219 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 220 to the Debian installer:<p>
 221 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 222
 223 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 224 install on.</li>
 225
 226 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 227 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 228
 229 </ol>
 230
 231 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 232
 233 <ol>
 234
 235 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 236 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 237 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 238 <pre>
 239 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 240 </pre></li>
 241 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 242 <pre>
 243 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 244    apt-key add -
 245 apt-get update
 246 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 247 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 248 </pre></li>
 249 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 250
 251 </ol>
 252
 253 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 254 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 255 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 256 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 257 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 258
 259 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 260 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 261 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 262 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 263
 264 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 265 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 266 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 267 irc.debian.org and the
 268 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 269 mailing list</a>.</p>
 270
 271 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 272 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 273 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 274 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 275 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 276 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 277
 278       </div>
 279       <div class="tags">
 280
 281
 282         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>.
 283
 284
 285       </div>
 286     </div>
 287     <div class="padding"></div>
 288
 289     <div class="entry">
 290       <div class="title">
 291         <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>
 292       </div>
 293       <div class="date">
 294         18th August 2013
 295       </div>
 296       <div class="body">
 297         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 298 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 299 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 300 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 301 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 302 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 303 currently on the disk.</p>
 304
 305 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 306 <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>
 307 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 308 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 309 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 310 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 311 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 312 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 313 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 314 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 315 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 316 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 317 the broken disks.</p>
 318
 319       </div>
 320       <div class="tags">
 321
 322
 323         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>.
 324
 325
 326       </div>
 327     </div>
 328     <div class="padding"></div>
 329
 330     <div class="entry">
 331       <div class="title">
 332         <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>
 333       </div>
 334       <div class="date">
 335         17th July 2013
 336       </div>
 337       <div class="body">
 338         <p>Today I switched to
 339 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
 340 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
 341 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
 342 <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
 343 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
 344 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
 345 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
 346 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
 347 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
 348 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
 349 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
 350 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
 351 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
 352 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
 353 station from now on.</p>
 354
 355 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
 356 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
 357 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
 358 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
 359 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
 360 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
 361 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
 362 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
 363 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
 364 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
 365 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
 366 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
 367
 368 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
 369 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
 370 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
 371 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
 372 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
 373 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
 374 parameters are tuned:</p>
 375
 376 <ul>
 377
 378 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
 379     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
 380
 381 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
 382     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
 383     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
 384
 385 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
 386     systems.</li>
 387
 388 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
 389     /etc/fstab.</li>
 390
 391 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
 392
 393 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
 394     cron.daily).</li>
 395
 396 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
 397     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
 398
 399 </ul>
 400
 401 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
 402 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
 403 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
 404 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
 405 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
 406 from getting the data on the disk (see
 407 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
 408 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
 409 right thing to do.</p>
 410
 411 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
 412 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
 413 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
 414
 415 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
 416 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
 417 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
 418 instead of during my work.</p>
 419
 420 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
 421 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
 422
 423 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
 424 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
 425 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
 426
 427 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
 428 there.</p>
 429
 430 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
 431 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
 432 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
 433 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
 434 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
 435 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
 436 back.</p>
 437
 438       </div>
 439       <div class="tags">
 440
 441
 442         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>.
 443
 444
 445       </div>
 446     </div>
 447     <div class="padding"></div>
 448
 449     <div class="entry">
 450       <div class="title">
 451         <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>
 452       </div>
 453       <div class="date">
 454         10th July 2013
 455       </div>
 456       <div class="body">
 457         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
 458 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
 459 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
 460 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
 461 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
 462 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
 463 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
 464 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
 465
 466 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
 467 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
 468 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
 469 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
 470 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
 471 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
 472 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
 473 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
 474 lock up when I download a new
 475 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
 476 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
 477 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
 478
 479 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 480 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
 481 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 482 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
 483 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 484 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 485
 486 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 487 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
 488 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 489 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
 490 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 491 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 492
 493 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
 494 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
 495 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
 496 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
 497 exist).</p>
 498
 499       </div>
 500       <div class="tags">
 501
 502
 503         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>.
 504
 505
 506       </div>
 507     </div>
 508     <div class="padding"></div>
 509
 510     <div class="entry">
 511       <div class="title">
 512         <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>
 513       </div>
 514       <div class="date">
 515          9th July 2013
 516       </div>
 517       <div class="body">
 518         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
 519 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
 520 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
 521 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
 522 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 523 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
 524 Bitraf</a>.</p>
 525
 526 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
 527 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
 528 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
 529 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
 530 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
 531
 532       </div>
 533       <div class="tags">
 534
 535
 536         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>.
 537
 538
 539       </div>
 540     </div>
 541     <div class="padding"></div>
 542
 543     <div class="entry">
 544       <div class="title">
 545         <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>
 546       </div>
 547       <div class="date">
 548          5th July 2013
 549       </div>
 550       <div class="body">
 551         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
 552 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
 553 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
 554 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
 555 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
 556 ended up picking a
 557 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
 558 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
 559 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
 560 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
 561 on that below.</p>
 562
 563 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 564 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 565 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 566 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 567 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 568 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
 569 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
 570 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
 571 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
 572
 573 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
 574 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
 575 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
 576 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
 577 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
 578 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
 579 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
 580
 581 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
 582 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
 583
 584 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
 585 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
 586 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
 587 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
 588 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
 589 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
 590 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
 591 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
 592 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
 593 kernel developers as
 594 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
 595 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
 596 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
 597 Lenovo forums, both for
 598 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
 599 2012-11-10</a> and for
 600 <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
 601 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
 602 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
 603 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
 604 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
 605 There is even a
 606 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
 607 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
 608 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
 609
 610 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
 611 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
 612 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
 613 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
 614 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
 615 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
 616 fixed. :)</p>
 617
 618       </div>
 619       <div class="tags">
 620
 621
 622         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>.
 623
 624
 625       </div>
 626     </div>
 627     <div class="padding"></div>
 628
 629     <div class="entry">
 630       <div class="title">
 631         <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>
 632       </div>
 633       <div class="date">
 634          4th July 2013
 635       </div>
 636       <div class="body">
 637         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
 638 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
 639 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
 640 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
 641 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
 642 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
 643 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
 644 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
 645 with an expencive door stop.</p>
 646
 647 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 648 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 649 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 650 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 651 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 652 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
 653 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
 654
 655 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
 656 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
 657 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
 658 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
 659 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
 660 new laptop now. :)</p>
 661
 662 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
 663
 664       </div>
 665       <div class="tags">
 666
 667
 668         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>.
 669
 670
 671       </div>
 672     </div>
 673     <div class="padding"></div>
 674
 675     <div class="entry">
 676       <div class="title">
 677         <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>
 678       </div>
 679       <div class="date">
 680         25th June 2013
 681       </div>
 682       <div class="body">
 683         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
 684 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
 685 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
 686 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
 687 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
 688 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
 689 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
 690 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
 691 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
 692 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
 693 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
 694
 695 <p><pre>
 696 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 697 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
 698 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
 699 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
 700 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
 701 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
 702 firmware-ipw2x00
 703 firmware-ipw2x00
 704 Preconfiguring packages ...
 705 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
 706 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
 707 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
 708 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
 709 #
 710 </pre></p>
 711
 712 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
 713 printed instead:</p>
 714
 715 <p><pre>
 716 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 717 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 718 #
 719 </pre></p>
 720
 721 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
 722 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
 723
 724 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
 725 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
 726 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
 727 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
 728 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
 729 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
 730 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
 731 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
 732 machine.</p>
 733
 734 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
 735 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
 736 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
 737 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
 738 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
 739 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
 740
 741       </div>
 742       <div class="tags">
 743
 744
 745         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>.
 746
 747
 748       </div>
 749     </div>
 750     <div class="padding"></div>
 751
 752     <div class="entry">
 753       <div class="title">
 754         <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>
 755       </div>
 756       <div class="date">
 757         11th June 2013
 758       </div>
 759       <div class="body">
 760         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 761 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 762 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 763 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 764 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 765 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 766 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 767 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 768 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 769 i915 driver used by the
 770 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 771 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 772
 773 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 774 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 775 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 776 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 777 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 778
 779 <pre>
 780 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 781 update-initramfs -u -k all
 782 </pre>
 783
 784 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 785 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 786 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 787 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 788 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 789 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 790 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 791 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 792 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 793 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 794 number.</p>
 795
 796 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 797 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 798
 799 <p><pre>
 800 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 801     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 802     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 803  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 804  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 805     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 806  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 807     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 808  Latency: 0
 809  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 810  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 811  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 812  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 813  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 814  Capabilities: <access denied>
 815  Kernel driver in use: i915
 816 </pre></p>
 817
 818 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 819
 820 <p><pre>
 821 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 822        ...
 823         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 824         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 825        ...
 826 }
 827 </pre></p>
 828
 829 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 830 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 831 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 832 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 833 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 834 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 835 yet shown up in
 836 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 837 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
 838 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
 839 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
 840 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
 841 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
 842
 843 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
 844 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
 845 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
 846 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
 847 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
 848 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
 849 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
 850 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
 851 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
 852 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
 853 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
 854 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
 855
 856 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
 857 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
 858 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
 859 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
 860 backlight.</p>
 861
 862       </div>
 863       <div class="tags">
 864
 865
 866         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>.
 867
 868
 869       </div>
 870     </div>
 871     <div class="padding"></div>
 872
 873     <div class="entry">
 874       <div class="title">
 875         <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>
 876       </div>
 877       <div class="date">
 878         27th May 2013
 879       </div>
 880       <div class="body">
 881         <p>Two days ago, I asked
 882 <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
 883 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
 884 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
 885 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
 886 and Windows 8.</p>
 887
 888 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
 889 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
 890 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
 891 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
 892 enough to tell.</p>
 893
 894 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
 895 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
 896 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
 897 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
 898 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
 899 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
 900 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
 901 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
 902 to follow.</p>
 903
 904 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
 905 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
 906 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
 907 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
 908 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
 909 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
 910 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
 911 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
 912
 913 <p>I've updated the
 914 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
 915 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
 916 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
 917 machine.</p>
 918
 919 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
 920 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
 921
 922       </div>
 923       <div class="tags">
 924
 925
 926         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>.
 927
 928
 929       </div>
 930     </div>
 931     <div class="padding"></div>
 932
 933     <div class="entry">
 934       <div class="title">
 935         <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>
 936       </div>
 937       <div class="date">
 938         25th May 2013
 939       </div>
 940       <div class="body">
 941         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
 942 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
 943 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
 944 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
 945 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
 946 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
 947
 948 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
 949 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
 950 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
 951 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
 952 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
 953 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
 954 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
 955 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
 956 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
 957 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
 958
 959 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
 960 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 961 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
 962 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
 963 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
 964 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
 965
 966 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
 967 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
 968 on new Laptops?</p>
 969
 970       </div>
 971       <div class="tags">
 972
 973
 974         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>.
 975
 976
 977       </div>
 978     </div>
 979     <div class="padding"></div>
 980
 981     <div class="entry">
 982       <div class="title">
 983         <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>
 984       </div>
 985       <div class="date">
 986         17th May 2013
 987       </div>
 988       <div class="body">
 989         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
 990 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
 991 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
 992 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
 993 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
 994 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
 995 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
 996 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
 997 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
 998 donate some money</a>.
 999
1000 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
1001 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
1002 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
1003 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
1004 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
1005
1006 <p>The script,
1007 <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/>
1008 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
1009 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
1010 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
1011
1012 <ol>
1013
1014 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
1015 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
1016 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
1017     our configuration.</li>
1018 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
1019     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
1020     according to the profile specified in the config above,
1021     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
1022 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
1023     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
1024 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
1025
1026 </ol>
1027
1028 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
1029 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
1030 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
1031 the needed packages.</p>
1032
1033 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
1034 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
1035 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
1036 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
1037 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
1038 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
1039
1040 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
1041 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
1042 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
1043
1044 <p><pre>
1045 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1046 DESKTOP="lxde"
1047 </pre></p>
1048
1049 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1050 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1051 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1052 boot.</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/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="date">
1070         11th May 2013
1071       </div>
1072       <div class="body">
1073         <P>In January,
1074 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1075 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1076 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1077 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1078 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1079 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1080 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1081 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1082 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1083 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1084 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1085 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1086
1087 <p><table>
1088 <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>
1089 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1090 <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>
1091 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1092 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1093 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1094 <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>
1095 <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>
1096 <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>
1097 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1098 </table></p>
1099
1100 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1101 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1102 available in experimental.</p>
1103
1104 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1105 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1106 for LEGO designers.</p>
1107
1108       </div>
1109       <div class="tags">
1110
1111
1112         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>.
1113
1114
1115       </div>
1116     </div>
1117     <div class="padding"></div>
1118
1119     <div class="entry">
1120       <div class="title">
1121         <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>
1122       </div>
1123       <div class="date">
1124          5th May 2013
1125       </div>
1126       <div class="body">
1127         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1128 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1129 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1130 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1131 soon.</p>
1132
1133 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1134 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1135 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1136 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1137 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1138 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1139 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1140 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1141 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1142 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1143 Edu.</a>
1144
1145 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1146 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1147 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1148 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1149 follow.<p>
1150
1151       </div>
1152       <div class="tags">
1153
1154
1155         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>.
1156
1157
1158       </div>
1159     </div>
1160     <div class="padding"></div>
1161
1162     <div class="entry">
1163       <div class="title">
1164         <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>
1165       </div>
1166       <div class="date">
1167          3rd April 2013
1168       </div>
1169       <div class="body">
1170         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1171 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1172 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1173 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1174
1175 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1176 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1177 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1178 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1179 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1180 BTS. :)</p>
1181
1182       </div>
1183       <div class="tags">
1184
1185
1186         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>.
1187
1188
1189       </div>
1190     </div>
1191     <div class="padding"></div>
1192
1193     <div class="entry">
1194       <div class="title">
1195         <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>
1196       </div>
1197       <div class="date">
1198          2nd February 2013
1199       </div>
1200       <div class="body">
1201         <p>My
1202 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1203 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1204 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1205 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1206 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1207 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1208 version too.</p>
1209
1210 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1211 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1212 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1213 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1214 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1215 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1216 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1217 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1218
1219 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1220 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1221 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1222 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1223 it. :)</p>
1224
1225 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1226 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1227 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1228
1229       </div>
1230       <div class="tags">
1231
1232
1233         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>.
1234
1235
1236       </div>
1237     </div>
1238     <div class="padding"></div>
1239
1240     <div class="entry">
1241       <div class="title">
1242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1243       </div>
1244       <div class="date">
1245         22nd January 2013
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="body">
1248         <p>Yesterday, I
1249 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1250 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1251 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1252 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1253 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1254 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1255 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1256 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1257 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1258 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1259 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1260 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1261 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1262
1263 <pre>
1264 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
1265 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
1266 </pre>
1267
1268 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
1269 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
1270 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
1271 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
1272
1273 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
1274 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
1275 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
1276 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
1277 word.</p>
1278
1279 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
1280 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
1281 process.</p>
1282
1283 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
1284 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
1285
1286       </div>
1287       <div class="tags">
1288
1289
1290         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>.
1291
1292
1293       </div>
1294     </div>
1295     <div class="padding"></div>
1296
1297     <div class="entry">
1298       <div class="title">
1299         <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>
1300       </div>
1301       <div class="date">
1302         21st January 2013
1303       </div>
1304       <div class="body">
1305         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
1306 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
1307 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
1308 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
1309 it, fetch the
1310 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
1311 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
1312 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
1313 autostart script.</p>
1314
1315 <p>The design is simple:</p>
1316
1317 <ul>
1318
1319 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
1320 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
1321
1322 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
1323 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
1324 initially did.</li>
1325
1326 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
1327 the APT database, a database
1328 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
1329 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
1330
1331 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
1332 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
1333 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
1334 package or packages.</li>
1335
1336 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
1337 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
1338
1339 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
1340 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
1341
1342 </ul>
1343
1344 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
1345 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
1346 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
1347 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
1348
1349 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
1350 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
1351 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
1352 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
1353 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
1354
1355 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
1356 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
1357 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
1358 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
1359 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
1360 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
1361 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
1362 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
1363
1364 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
1365 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
1366 '<tt>svn checkout
1367 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
1368 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
1369 devscripts package.</p>
1370
1371 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
1372 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
1373 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
1374 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
1375 instructions</a> for details.</p>
1376
1377       </div>
1378       <div class="tags">
1379
1380
1381         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>.
1382
1383
1384       </div>
1385     </div>
1386     <div class="padding"></div>
1387
1388     <div class="entry">
1389       <div class="title">
1390         <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>
1391       </div>
1392       <div class="date">
1393         19th January 2013
1394       </div>
1395       <div class="body">
1396         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
1397 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
1398 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
1399 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
1400 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
1401 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
1402 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
1403 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
1404 not a durable solution.
1405
1406 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
1407 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
1408
1409 <ul>
1410
1411 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
1412   than A4).</li>
1413 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
1414 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
1415 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
1416 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
1417 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
1418 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
1419 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
1420 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
1421 size).</li>
1422 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
1423   X.org packages.</li>
1424 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
1425   the time).
1426
1427 </ul>
1428
1429 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
1430 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
1431 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
1432 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
1433 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
1434 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
1435 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
1436 still be useful.</p>
1437
1438 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
1439 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
1440 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
1441 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
1442 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
1443 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
1444
1445       </div>
1446       <div class="tags">
1447
1448
1449         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>.
1450
1451
1452       </div>
1453     </div>
1454     <div class="padding"></div>
1455
1456     <div class="entry">
1457       <div class="title">
1458         <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>
1459       </div>
1460       <div class="date">
1461         18th January 2013
1462       </div>
1463       <div class="body">
1464         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
1465 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
1466 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
1467 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
1468 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
1469 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
1470 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
1471
1472 <pre>
1473 #!/usr/bin/python
1474 import sys
1475 import apt
1476 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1477     cache = apt.Cache()
1478     cache.open(None)
1479     thepkgs = []
1480     for pkg in cache:
1481         version = pkg.candidate
1482         if version is None:
1483             version = pkg.installed
1484         if version is None:
1485             continue
1486         record = version.record
1487         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
1488             continue
1489         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
1490         for t in mime_types:
1491             t = t.rstrip().strip()
1492             if t == mimetype:
1493                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
1494     return thepkgs
1495 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
1496 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
1497     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
1498 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
1499 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1500     print "  %s" %pkg
1501 </pre>
1502
1503 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
1504
1505 <pre>
1506 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
1507 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
1508   gecko-mediaplayer
1509 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
1510 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
1511   browser-plugin-gnash
1512 %
1513 </pre>
1514
1515 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
1516 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
1517 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
1518 anyone working on adding it?</p>
1519
1520 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
1521 request for icweasel support for this feature is
1522 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
1523 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
1524 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
1525 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
1526
1527       </div>
1528       <div class="tags">
1529
1530
1531         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>.
1532
1533
1534       </div>
1535     </div>
1536     <div class="padding"></div>
1537
1538     <div class="entry">
1539       <div class="title">
1540         <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>
1541       </div>
1542       <div class="date">
1543         16th January 2013
1544       </div>
1545       <div class="body">
1546         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
1547 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
1548 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1549 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1550 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
1551 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1552 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1553 downloaded by the browser.</p>
1554
1555 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1556 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1557 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
1558 can be found on the
1559 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
1560 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
1561 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1562 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1563 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
1564
1565 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
1566
1567 <pre>
1568   count MIME type
1569   ----- -----------------------
1570      32 text/plain
1571      30 audio/mpeg
1572      29 image/png
1573      28 image/jpeg
1574      27 application/ogg
1575      26 audio/x-mp3
1576      25 image/tiff
1577      25 image/gif
1578      22 image/bmp
1579      22 audio/x-wav
1580      20 audio/x-flac
1581      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1582      18 video/x-ms-asf
1583      18 audio/x-musepack
1584      18 audio/x-mpeg
1585      18 application/x-ogg
1586      17 video/mpeg
1587      17 audio/x-scpls
1588      17 audio/ogg
1589      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1590 </pre>
1591
1592 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
1593
1594 <pre>
1595   count MIME type
1596   ----- -----------------------
1597      33 text/plain
1598      32 image/png
1599      32 image/jpeg
1600      29 audio/mpeg
1601      27 image/gif
1602      26 image/tiff
1603      26 application/ogg
1604      25 audio/x-mp3
1605      22 image/bmp
1606      21 audio/x-wav
1607      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1608      19 audio/x-mpeg
1609      18 video/mpeg
1610      18 audio/x-scpls
1611      18 audio/x-flac
1612      18 application/x-ogg
1613      17 video/x-ms-asf
1614      17 text/html
1615      17 audio/x-musepack
1616      16 image/x-xbitmap
1617 </pre>
1618
1619 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1620
1621 <pre>
1622   count MIME type
1623   ----- -----------------------
1624      31 text/plain
1625      31 image/png
1626      31 image/jpeg
1627      29 audio/mpeg
1628      28 application/ogg
1629      27 image/gif
1630      26 image/tiff
1631      26 audio/x-mp3
1632      23 audio/x-wav
1633      22 image/bmp
1634      21 audio/x-flac
1635      20 audio/x-mpegurl
1636      19 audio/x-mpeg
1637      18 video/x-ms-asf
1638      18 video/mpeg
1639      18 audio/x-scpls
1640      18 application/x-ogg
1641      17 audio/x-musepack
1642      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1643      16 video/x-msvideo
1644 </pre>
1645
1646 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1647 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
1648 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1649 issues.</p>
1650
1651 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
1652 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
1653
1654       </div>
1655       <div class="tags">
1656
1657
1658         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>.
1659
1660
1661       </div>
1662     </div>
1663     <div class="padding"></div>
1664
1665     <div class="entry">
1666       <div class="title">
1667         <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>
1668       </div>
1669       <div class="date">
1670         15th January 2013
1671       </div>
1672       <div class="body">
1673         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1674 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1675 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1676 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1677 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1678 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1679 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1680 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1681 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1682 packages.</p>
1683
1684 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1685 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1686 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1687 modalias.</p>
1688
1689 <p><blockquote>
1690 Package: package-name
1691 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1692 </blockquote></p>
1693
1694 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1695 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1696
1697 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1698 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1699
1700 <p><blockquote>
1701 Package: cheese
1702 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1703 </blockquote></p>
1704
1705 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1706 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1707
1708 <p><blockquote>
1709 Package: pcmciautils
1710 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1711 </blockquote></p>
1712
1713 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1714 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1715
1716 <p><blockquote>
1717 Package: colorhug-client
1718 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1719 </blockquote></p>
1720
1721 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1722 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1723 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1724
1725 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1726 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1727 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1728 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1729 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1730 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1731 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1732 Raring.</p>
1733
1734 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1735 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1736 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1737 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1738 try the
1739 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1740 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1741 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1742 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1743
1744 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1745 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1746
1747 <p><blockquote>
1748 % ./hw-support-lookup
1749 <br>yubikey-personalization
1750 <br>%
1751 </blockquote></p>
1752
1753 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1754 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1755
1756 <p><blockquote>
1757 % ./hw-support-lookup
1758 <br>pcmciautils
1759 <br>%
1760 </blockquote></p>
1761
1762 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1763 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1764 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1765
1766 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1767 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1768 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1769 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1770 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1771 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1772 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1773 see if it work.</p>
1774
1775 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1776 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1777 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1778 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1779
1780       </div>
1781       <div class="tags">
1782
1783
1784         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>.
1785
1786
1787       </div>
1788     </div>
1789     <div class="padding"></div>
1790
1791     <div class="entry">
1792       <div class="title">
1793         <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>
1794       </div>
1795       <div class="date">
1796         14th January 2013
1797       </div>
1798       <div class="body">
1799         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1800 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1801 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1802 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1803 in
1804 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1805 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1806
1807 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1808
1809 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1810 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1811 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1812 &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;,
1813 &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
1814 &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;.
1815
1816 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1817 this shell script:</p>
1818
1819 <pre>
1820 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1821 </pre>
1822
1823 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1824 using modinfo:</p>
1825
1826 <pre>
1827 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1828 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1829 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1830 %
1831 </pre>
1832
1833 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1834
1835 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1836 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1837
1838 <p><blockquote>
1839 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1840 </blockquote></p>
1841
1842 <p>This represent these values:</p>
1843
1844 <pre>
1845  v   00008086  (vendor)
1846  d   00002770  (device)
1847  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
1848  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
1849  bc  06        (bus class)
1850  sc  00        (bus subclass)
1851  i   00        (interface)
1852 </pre>
1853
1854 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1855 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1856 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
1857 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
1858
1859 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1860 means.</p>
1861
1862 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
1863
1864 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
1865 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
1866
1867 <p><blockquote>
1868 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1869 </blockquote></p>
1870
1871 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
1872
1873 <pre>
1874  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
1875  p    0001  (device product)
1876  d    0206  (bcddevice)
1877  dc     09  (device class)
1878  dsc    00  (device subclass)
1879  dp     00  (device protocol)
1880  ic     09  (interface class)
1881  isc    00  (interface subclass)
1882  ip     00  (interface protocol)
1883 </pre>
1884
1885 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
1886 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
1887 these alias entries show up:</p>
1888
1889 <p><blockquote>
1890 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1891 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1892 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1893 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1894 </blockquote></p>
1895
1896 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
1897 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
1898 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
1899
1900 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
1901
1902 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
1903 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
1904
1905 <p><blockquote>
1906 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1907 </blockquote></p>
1908
1909 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
1910
1911 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
1912
1913 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1914 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1915 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
1916
1917 <p><blockquote>
1918 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1919 </blockquote></p>
1920
1921 <p>The values present are</p>
1922
1923 <pre>
1924  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
1925  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
1926  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
1927  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
1928  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
1929  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
1930  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
1931  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
1932  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
1933  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
1934  ct   10             (chassis type)
1935  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
1936 </pre>
1937
1938 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
1939 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
1940
1941 <pre>
1942   3 Desktop
1943   4 Low Profile Desktop
1944   5 Pizza Box
1945   6 Mini Tower
1946   7 Tower
1947   8 Portable
1948   9 Laptop
1949  10 Notebook
1950  11 Hand Held
1951  12 Docking Station
1952  13 All In One
1953  14 Sub Notebook
1954  15 Space-saving
1955  16 Lunch Box
1956  17 Main Server Chassis
1957  18 Expansion Chassis
1958  19 Sub Chassis
1959  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1960  21 Peripheral Chassis
1961  22 RAID Chassis
1962  23 Rack Mount Chassis
1963  24 Sealed-case PC
1964  25 Multi-system
1965  26 CompactPCI
1966  27 AdvancedTCA
1967  28 Blade
1968  29 Blade Enclosing
1969 </pre>
1970
1971 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1972 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1973 claim it is a desktop.</p>
1974
1975 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
1976
1977 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
1978 test machine:</p>
1979
1980 <p><blockquote>
1981 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1982 </blockquote></p>
1983
1984 <p>The values present are</p>
1985
1986 <pre>
1987   ty  01  (type)
1988   pr  00  (prototype)
1989   id  00  (id)
1990   ex  00  (extra)
1991 </pre>
1992
1993 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
1994 the valid values are.</p>
1995
1996 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
1997
1998 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1999 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2000 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2001 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2002 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2003 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2004 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2005
2006 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2007
2008 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2009 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2010
2011 <pre>
2012   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2013     echo "$id" ; \
2014     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2015   done
2016 </pre>
2017
2018 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2019 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2020
2021 <pre>
2022   acpi:ACPI0003:
2023     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2024   acpi:device:
2025   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2026   acpi:IBM0068:
2027     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2028     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2029     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2030     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2031   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2032     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2033     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2034     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2035   [...]
2036 </pre>
2037
2038 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2039 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2040 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2041 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2042
2043 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2044 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2045 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2046
2047       </div>
2048       <div class="tags">
2049
2050
2051         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>.
2052
2053
2054       </div>
2055     </div>
2056     <div class="padding"></div>
2057
2058     <div class="entry">
2059       <div class="title">
2060         <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>
2061       </div>
2062       <div class="date">
2063         10th January 2013
2064       </div>
2065       <div class="body">
2066         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2067 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2068 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2069 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2070 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2071 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2072 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2073 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2074 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2075 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2076 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2077 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2078 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2079 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2080 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2081 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2082 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2083 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2084
2085       </div>
2086       <div class="tags">
2087
2088
2089         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>.
2090
2091
2092       </div>
2093     </div>
2094     <div class="padding"></div>
2095
2096     <div class="entry">
2097       <div class="title">
2098         <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>
2099       </div>
2100       <div class="date">
2101          9th January 2013
2102       </div>
2103       <div class="body">
2104         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2105 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2106 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2107 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2108 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2109 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2110 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2111 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2112 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2113 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2114 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2115
2116 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2117 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2118 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2119 simple:
2120
2121 <ul>
2122
2123 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2124   starting when a user log in.</li>
2125
2126 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2127   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2128
2129 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2130   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2131   packages.</li>
2132
2133 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2134   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2135
2136 </ul>
2137
2138 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2139 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2140 discover database to find packages and
2141 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2142 packages.</p>
2143
2144 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2145 draft package is now checked into
2146 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2147 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2148 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2149 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2150 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2151 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2152 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2153 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2154 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2155 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2156 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2157 because of the freeze).</p>
2158
2159 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2160 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2161 inserted):</p>
2162
2163 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2164
2165 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2166 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2167 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2168
2169 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2170 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2171 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2172 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2173 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2174 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2175 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2176
2177 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2178 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2179 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2180 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2181 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2182 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2183 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2184 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2185 not be installed?</p>
2186
2187 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2188 please send me an email. :)</p>
2189
2190       </div>
2191       <div class="tags">
2192
2193
2194         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>.
2195
2196
2197       </div>
2198     </div>
2199     <div class="padding"></div>
2200
2201     <div class="entry">
2202       <div class="title">
2203         <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>
2204       </div>
2205       <div class="date">
2206          2nd January 2013
2207       </div>
2208       <div class="body">
2209         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2210 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2211 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2212 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2213 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2214 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2215 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2216 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2217 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2218 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2219
2220 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2221 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2222 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2223
2224       </div>
2225       <div class="tags">
2226
2227
2228         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>.
2229
2230
2231       </div>
2232     </div>
2233     <div class="padding"></div>
2234
2235     <div class="entry">
2236       <div class="title">
2237         <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>
2238       </div>
2239       <div class="date">
2240         25th December 2012
2241       </div>
2242       <div class="body">
2243         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2244 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2245
2246 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2247 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2248 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2249 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2250 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2251 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2252 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2253 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2254 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2255 name.</p>
2256
2257 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2258 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2259 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2260
2261 <blockquote><pre>
2262 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2263 cd bitcoin
2264 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
2265 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
2266 </pre></blockquote>
2267
2268 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
2269 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
2270 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
2271 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
2272 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
2273 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
2274 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
2275 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
2276 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
2277
2278 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2279 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2280 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2281
2282       </div>
2283       <div class="tags">
2284
2285
2286         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>.
2287
2288
2289       </div>
2290     </div>
2291     <div class="padding"></div>
2292
2293     <div class="entry">
2294       <div class="title">
2295         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
2296       </div>
2297       <div class="date">
2298         21st December 2012
2299       </div>
2300       <div class="body">
2301         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
2302 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
2303 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
2304 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
2305 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
2306 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
2307 is now maintained by a
2308 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
2309 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
2310 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
2311 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
2312 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
2313 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
2314 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
2315 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
2316 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
2317 Corallo in a
2318 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
2319 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
2320 Debian package.</p>
2321
2322 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
2323 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
2324 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
2325 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
2326 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
2327 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
2328 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
2329 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
2330 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
2331 new version to unstable.
2332
2333 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
2334 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
2335 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
2336 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
2337 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
2338 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
2339 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
2340 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
2341 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
2342 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
2343 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
2344 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
2345 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
2346 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
2347 have not tested them.</p>
2348
2349 <p>My
2350 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
2351 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
2352 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
2353 years ago, as can be
2354 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
2355 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
2356 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
2357 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
2358 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
2359 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
2360 the same address as last time,
2361 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2362
2363       </div>
2364       <div class="tags">
2365
2366
2367         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>.
2368
2369
2370       </div>
2371     </div>
2372     <div class="padding"></div>
2373
2374     <div class="entry">
2375       <div class="title">
2376         <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>
2377       </div>
2378       <div class="date">
2379          7th September 2012
2380       </div>
2381       <div class="body">
2382         <p>As I
2383 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2384 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2385 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2386 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2387 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2388
2389 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2390 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2391 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2392 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2393
2394 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2395 PostScript formats at
2396 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2397 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2398
2399       </div>
2400       <div class="tags">
2401
2402
2403         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>.
2404
2405
2406       </div>
2407     </div>
2408     <div class="padding"></div>
2409
2410     <div class="entry">
2411       <div class="title">
2412         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
2413       </div>
2414       <div class="date">
2415         16th August 2012
2416       </div>
2417       <div class="body">
2418         <p>I dag fyller
2419 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
2420 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
2421 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
2422
2423       </div>
2424       <div class="tags">
2425
2426
2427         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>.
2428
2429
2430       </div>
2431     </div>
2432     <div class="padding"></div>
2433
2434     <div class="entry">
2435       <div class="title">
2436         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2437       </div>
2438       <div class="date">
2439         24th June 2012
2440       </div>
2441       <div class="body">
2442         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2443 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2444 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
2445 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2446 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2447 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
2448 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2449 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2450 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
2451 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
2452 missing in my book.</p>
2453
2454 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2455 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2456 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2457 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
2458 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
2459 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
2460 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2461
2462       </div>
2463       <div class="tags">
2464
2465
2466         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>.
2467
2468
2469       </div>
2470     </div>
2471     <div class="padding"></div>
2472
2473     <div class="entry">
2474       <div class="title">
2475         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
2476       </div>
2477       <div class="date">
2478         21st November 2011
2479       </div>
2480       <div class="body">
2481         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
2482 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
2483 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
2484 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
2485 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
2486 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
2487 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
2488 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
2489 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
2490 the tools to do so.</p>
2491
2492 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
2493 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
2494 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
2495 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
2496
2497 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
2498 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
2499 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
2500 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
2501 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
2502 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
2503 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
2504 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
2505
2506 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
2507 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
2508 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
2509
2510 <p><pre>
2511 #!/usr/bin/perl
2512 use strict;
2513 use warnings;
2514 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
2515 BEGIN {
2516     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
2517     my %rhelmodules = (
2518         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
2519         );
2520     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
2521         eval "use $module;";
2522         if ($@) {
2523             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
2524             system("yum install -y $pkg");
2525             eval "use $module;";
2526         }
2527     }
2528 }
2529 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
2530
2531 upgrade_dell();
2532
2533 exit 0;
2534
2535 sub run_firmware_script {
2536     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
2537     unless ($script) {
2538         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
2539         exit 1
2540     }
2541     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
2542
2543     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
2544         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
2545     } else {
2546         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
2547     }
2548 }
2549
2550 sub run_firmware_scripts {
2551     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
2552     # Run firmware packages
2553     for my $dir (@dirs) {
2554         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
2555         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
2556         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
2557             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
2558             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
2559         }
2560         closedir $dh;
2561     }
2562 }
2563
2564 sub download {
2565     my $url = shift;
2566     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
2567     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
2568 }
2569
2570 sub upgrade_dell {
2571     my @dirs;
2572     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2573     chomp $product;
2574
2575     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
2576
2577         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
2578         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
2579
2580         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
2581             CLEANUP => 1
2582             );
2583         chdir($tmpdir);
2584         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
2585         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
2586         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
2587         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
2588         my $fwopts = "-q";
2589         if (@paths) {
2590             for my $url (@paths) {
2591                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
2592             }
2593             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
2594         } else {
2595             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2596             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2597         }
2598         chdir('/');
2599     } else {
2600         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2601         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2602     }
2603 }
2604
2605 sub fetch_dell_fw {
2606     my $path = shift;
2607     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
2608     download($url);
2609 }
2610
2611 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
2612 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
2613 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
2614 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
2615     my $filename = shift;
2616
2617     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2618     chomp $product;
2619     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
2620
2621     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
2622
2623     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
2624     my @paths;
2625     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
2626         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
2627         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
2628         my $oscode;
2629         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
2630             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
2631         } else {
2632             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
2633         }
2634         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
2635         {
2636             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
2637         }
2638     }
2639     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
2640         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
2641
2642         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
2643         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
2644
2645         my $cpath = $component->{path};
2646         for my $path (@paths) {
2647             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
2648                 push(@paths, $cpath);
2649             }
2650         }
2651     }
2652     return @paths;
2653 }
2654 </pre>
2655
2656 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
2657 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
2658 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
2659 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
2660 outdated.</p>
2661
2662       </div>
2663       <div class="tags">
2664
2665
2666         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>.
2667
2668
2669       </div>
2670     </div>
2671     <div class="padding"></div>
2672
2673     <div class="entry">
2674       <div class="title">
2675         <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>
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="date">
2678          4th August 2011
2679       </div>
2680       <div class="body">
2681         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
2682 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
2683 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
2684 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
2685 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
2686 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
2687 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
2688 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
2689 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
2690
2691 <p><blockquote>
2692 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2693 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
2694 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2695 </blockquote></p>
2696
2697 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2698 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
2699 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2700 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2701 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
2702 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2703 hard to explain.</p>
2704
2705 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2706 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
2707 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
2708 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2709 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2710 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2711 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2712 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2713 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2714 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
2715 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2716 mode).</p>
2717
2718 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
2719 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2720 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
2721 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
2722 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
2723 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
2724 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2725 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2726 after visiting single user mode.</p>
2727
2728 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2729 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
2730 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2731 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2732 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2733 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2734 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
2735 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
2736
2737 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2738 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
2739 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
2740
2741       </div>
2742       <div class="tags">
2743
2744
2745         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>.
2746
2747
2748       </div>
2749     </div>
2750     <div class="padding"></div>
2751
2752     <div class="entry">
2753       <div class="title">
2754         <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>
2755       </div>
2756       <div class="date">
2757         30th July 2011
2758       </div>
2759       <div class="body">
2760         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2761 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
2762 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
2763 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
2764 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2765 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2766 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2767 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2768 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2769 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
2770 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2771 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2772 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
2773
2774 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
2775 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2776 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
2777 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
2778 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2779 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2780 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2781 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
2782 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
2783
2784 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2785 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2786 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2787 is presented.</p>
2788
2789 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
2790 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2791 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2792 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2793 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2794 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2795 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2796 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
2797 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2798 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2799 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2800 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
2801 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2802 find time to push this forward.</p>
2803
2804       </div>
2805       <div class="tags">
2806
2807
2808         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>.
2809
2810
2811       </div>
2812     </div>
2813     <div class="padding"></div>
2814
2815     <div class="entry">
2816       <div class="title">
2817         <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>
2818       </div>
2819       <div class="date">
2820         29th July 2011
2821       </div>
2822       <div class="body">
2823         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2824 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2825 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
2826 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2827 issues.</p>
2828
2829 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2830 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2831 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
2832
2833 <ol>
2834
2835 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
2836 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2837 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
2838 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
2839 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
2840 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
2841 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
2842 Debian.</li>
2843
2844 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
2845 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
2846 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
2847 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
2848 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
2849 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
2850 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
2851 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
2852 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
2853 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
2854 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
2855 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
2856 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
2857
2858 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
2859 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
2860 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
2861 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
2862 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
2863 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
2864 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
2865 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
2866 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
2867 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
2868
2869 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
2870 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
2871 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
2872 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
2873 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
2874 latter behaviour.</li>
2875
2876 </ol>
2877
2878 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
2879 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
2880 it do not matter much.</p>
2881
2882 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
2883 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
2884 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
2885
2886       </div>
2887       <div class="tags">
2888
2889
2890         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2891
2892
2893       </div>
2894     </div>
2895     <div class="padding"></div>
2896
2897     <div class="entry">
2898       <div class="title">
2899         <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>
2900       </div>
2901       <div class="date">
2902         26th July 2011
2903       </div>
2904       <div class="body">
2905         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
2906 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
2907 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
2908 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
2909 security support for a few years.</p>
2910
2911 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
2912 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
2913 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
2914 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
2915 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
2916 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
2917 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
2918 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
2919 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
2920 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
2921 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
2922 easier in the future.</p>
2923
2924 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
2925 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
2926 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
2927 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
2928 do not have time for.</p>
2929
2930       </div>
2931       <div class="tags">
2932
2933
2934         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>.
2935
2936
2937       </div>
2938     </div>
2939     <div class="padding"></div>
2940
2941     <div class="entry">
2942       <div class="title">
2943         <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>
2944       </div>
2945       <div class="date">
2946          3rd April 2011
2947       </div>
2948       <div class="body">
2949         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
2950 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
2951 update in English.</p>
2952
2953 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
2954 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
2955 of the British service
2956 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
2957 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
2958 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
2959 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
2960 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
2961 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
2962 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
2963 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
2964 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
2965 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
2966 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
2967 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
2968 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
2969
2970 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
2971 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
2972 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
2973 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
2974 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
2975 public infrastructure.</p>
2976
2977 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
2978 such service?</p>
2979
2980       </div>
2981       <div class="tags">
2982
2983
2984         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>.
2985
2986
2987       </div>
2988     </div>
2989     <div class="padding"></div>
2990
2991     <div class="entry">
2992       <div class="title">
2993         <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>
2994       </div>
2995       <div class="date">
2996         28th January 2011
2997       </div>
2998       <div class="body">
2999         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
3000 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
3001 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
3002 available on the Internet, and check our locally
3003 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
3004 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
3005 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
3006 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
3007 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
3008 out which security holes were present in our free software
3009 collection.</p>
3010
3011 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
3012 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
3013 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
3014 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
3015 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
3016 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
3017 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
3018 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
3019 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
3020 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
3021 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
3022 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
3023 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
3024 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
3025 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
3026 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
3027
3028 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
3029 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
3030 check out, one could look up
3031 <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
3032 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
3033 The most recent one is
3034 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
3035 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
3036 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
3037
3038 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
3039 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
3040 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
3041 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
3042 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
3043 security issues out.</p>
3044
3045 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3046 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3047 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3048 RHEL is providing
3049 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3050 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3051 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3052
3053 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3054 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3055 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3056 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3057 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3058 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3059 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3060 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3061 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3062 established soon.</p>
3063
3064 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3065 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3066 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3067 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3068 for their packages.</p>
3069
3070       </div>
3071       <div class="tags">
3072
3073
3074         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>.
3075
3076
3077       </div>
3078     </div>
3079     <div class="padding"></div>
3080
3081     <div class="entry">
3082       <div class="title">
3083         <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>
3084       </div>
3085       <div class="date">
3086         23rd January 2011
3087       </div>
3088       <div class="body">
3089         <p>In the
3090 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3091 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3092 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3093 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3094 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3095 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3096 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3097 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3098 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3099 one of my machines like this:</p>
3100
3101 <pre>
3102 loaded modules:
3103 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3104 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3105 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3106 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3107 10de:03ec pata_amd
3108 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3109 1022:1103 k8temp
3110 109e:036e bttv
3111 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3112 11ab:4364 sky2
3113 </pre>
3114
3115 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3116 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3117
3118 <pre>
3119 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3120     echo loaded pci modules:
3121     (
3122         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3123         for address in * ; do
3124             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3125                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3126                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3127                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3128                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3129                     echo "$id $module"
3130                 fi
3131             fi
3132         done
3133     )
3134     echo
3135 fi
3136 </pre>
3137
3138 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3139 mappings:</p>
3140
3141 <pre>
3142 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3143     echo loaded usb modules:
3144     (
3145         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3146         for address in * ; do
3147             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3148                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3149                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3150                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3151                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3152                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3153                         echo "$id $module"
3154                     fi
3155                 fi
3156             fi
3157         done
3158     )
3159     echo
3160 fi
3161 </pre>
3162
3163 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3164 well.</p>
3165
3166       </div>
3167       <div class="tags">
3168
3169
3170         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>.
3171
3172
3173       </div>
3174     </div>
3175     <div class="padding"></div>
3176
3177     <div class="entry">
3178       <div class="title">
3179         <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>
3180       </div>
3181       <div class="date">
3182         22nd December 2010
3183       </div>
3184       <div class="body">
3185         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3186 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3187 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3188 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3189 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3190 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3191 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3192 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3193 university.</p>
3194
3195 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3196 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3197 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3198 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3199 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3200 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3201 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3202 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3203
3204 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3205 I perform on a new model.</p>
3206
3207 <ul>
3208
3209 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3210 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3211 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3212
3213 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3214 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3215
3216 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3217 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3218 reported by the program.</li>
3219
3220 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3221 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3222 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3223 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3224 normally test this by playing
3225 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3226 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3227
3228 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3229 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3230
3231 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3232 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3233
3234 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3235 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3236
3237 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3238 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3239 few.</li>
3240
3241 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3242 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3243 notice this.</li>
3244
3245 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3246 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3247 resume.</li>
3248
3249 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3250 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3251 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3252 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3253 not.</li>
3254
3255 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3256 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3257 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3258 existence.</li>
3259
3260 </ul>
3261
3262 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
3263 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
3264 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
3265 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
3266 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
3267 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
3268 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
3269 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
3270
3271       </div>
3272       <div class="tags">
3273
3274
3275         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>.
3276
3277
3278       </div>
3279     </div>
3280     <div class="padding"></div>
3281
3282     <div class="entry">
3283       <div class="title">
3284         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="date">
3287         11th December 2010
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="body">
3290         <p>As I continue to explore
3291 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
3292 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
3293 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
3294
3295 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
3296 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
3297 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
3298 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
3299 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
3300 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
3301 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
3302 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
3303 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
3304 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
3305 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
3306 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
3307 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
3308 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
3309 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
3310 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
3311 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
3312 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
3313 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
3314 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
3315
3316 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
3317 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
3318 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
3319 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
3320 If the Skolelinux foundation
3321 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
3322 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
3323 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
3324 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
3325 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
3326 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
3327 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
3328 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
3329
3330 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
3331 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
3332 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
3333 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
3334 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
3335 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
3336 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
3337 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
3338 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
3339 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
3340 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
3341 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
3342 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
3343 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
3344 currencies.</p>
3345
3346 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
3347 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
3348 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
3349 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
3350 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
3351 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
3352 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
3353 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
3354 BitCoins.  Check out
3355 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
3356 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
3357 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
3358 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
3359 yet.</p>
3360
3361 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
3362 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
3363 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
3364 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
3365 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
3366
3367       </div>
3368       <div class="tags">
3369
3370
3371         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>.
3372
3373
3374       </div>
3375     </div>
3376     <div class="padding"></div>
3377
3378     <div class="entry">
3379       <div class="title">
3380         <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>
3381       </div>
3382       <div class="date">
3383         10th December 2010
3384       </div>
3385       <div class="body">
3386         <p>With this weeks lawless
3387 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
3388 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
3389 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
3390 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
3391 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
3392 A blog post from
3393 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
3394 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
3395 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
3396 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
3397 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
3398 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
3399 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
3400
3401 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
3402 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
3403 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
3404 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
3405 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
3406 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
3407 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
3408 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
3409 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
3410 Debian</a> soon.</p>
3411
3412 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
3413 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
3414 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
3415 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
3416 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
3417 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
3418 you can even get
3419 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
3420 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
3421 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
3422 on the current exchange rates.</p>
3423
3424 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
3425 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
3426 donations to the address
3427 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
3428
3429       </div>
3430       <div class="tags">
3431
3432
3433         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>.
3434
3435
3436       </div>
3437     </div>
3438     <div class="padding"></div>
3439
3440     <div class="entry">
3441       <div class="title">
3442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="date">
3445         27th November 2010
3446       </div>
3447       <div class="body">
3448         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
3449 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
3450 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
3451 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
3452 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
3453 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
3454 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
3455 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
3456
3457 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
3458 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3459 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
3460 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
3461 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
3462 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
3463 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
3464 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
3465 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
3466 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
3467 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
3468
3469 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
3470 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
3471 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
3472 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
3473 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
3474 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
3475 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
3476 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
3477 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
3478 what is going on.</p>
3479
3480       </div>
3481       <div class="tags">
3482
3483
3484         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>.
3485
3486
3487       </div>
3488     </div>
3489     <div class="padding"></div>
3490
3491     <div class="entry">
3492       <div class="title">
3493         <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>
3494       </div>
3495       <div class="date">
3496         22nd November 2010
3497       </div>
3498       <div class="body">
3499         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
3500 upgrade testing of the
3501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
3502 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
3503 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
3504 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
3505
3506 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
3507
3508 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3509
3510 <blockquote><p>
3511   apache2.2-bin
3512   aptdaemon
3513   baobab
3514   binfmt-support
3515   browser-plugin-gnash
3516   cheese-common
3517   cli-common
3518   cups-pk-helper
3519   dmz-cursor-theme
3520   empathy
3521   empathy-common
3522   freedesktop-sound-theme
3523   freeglut3
3524   gconf-defaults-service
3525   gdm-themes
3526   gedit-plugins
3527   geoclue
3528   geoclue-hostip
3529   geoclue-localnet
3530   geoclue-manual
3531   geoclue-yahoo
3532   gnash
3533   gnash-common
3534   gnome
3535   gnome-backgrounds
3536   gnome-cards-data
3537   gnome-codec-install
3538   gnome-core
3539   gnome-desktop-environment
3540   gnome-disk-utility
3541   gnome-screenshot
3542   gnome-search-tool
3543   gnome-session-canberra
3544   gnome-system-log
3545   gnome-themes-extras
3546   gnome-themes-more
3547   gnome-user-share
3548   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3549   gstreamer0.10-tools
3550   gtk2-engines
3551   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3552   gtk2-engines-smooth
3553   hamster-applet
3554   libapache2-mod-dnssd
3555   libapr1
3556   libaprutil1
3557   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
3558   libaprutil1-ldap
3559   libart2.0-cil
3560   libboost-date-time1.42.0
3561   libboost-python1.42.0
3562   libboost-thread1.42.0
3563   libchamplain-0.4-0
3564   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
3565   libcheese-gtk18
3566   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3567   libcryptui0
3568   libdiscid0
3569   libelf1
3570   libepc-1.0-2
3571   libepc-common
3572   libepc-ui-1.0-2
3573   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3574   libfreerdp0
3575   libgconf2.0-cil
3576   libgdata-common
3577   libgdata7
3578   libgdu-gtk0
3579   libgee2
3580   libgeoclue0
3581   libgexiv2-0
3582   libgif4
3583   libglade2.0-cil
3584   libglib2.0-cil
3585   libgmime2.4-cil
3586   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3587   libgnome2.24-cil
3588   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
3589   libgpod-common
3590   libgpod4
3591   libgtk2.0-cil
3592   libgtkglext1
3593   libgtksourceview2.0-common
3594   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3595   libmono-addins0.2-cil
3596   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
3597   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3598   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
3599   libmono-posix2.0-cil
3600   libmono-security2.0-cil
3601   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3602   libmono-system2.0-cil
3603   libmtp8
3604   libmusicbrainz3-6
3605   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
3606   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
3607   libopal3.6.8
3608   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
3609   libpt2.6.7
3610   libpython2.6
3611   librpm1
3612   librpmio1
3613   libsdl1.2debian
3614   libsrtp0
3615   libssh-4
3616   libtelepathy-farsight0
3617   libtelepathy-glib0
3618   libtidy-0.99-0
3619   media-player-info
3620   mesa-utils
3621   mono-2.0-gac
3622   mono-gac
3623   mono-runtime
3624   nautilus-sendto
3625   nautilus-sendto-empathy
3626   p7zip-full
3627   pkg-config
3628   python-aptdaemon
3629   python-aptdaemon-gtk
3630   python-axiom
3631   python-beautifulsoup
3632   python-bugbuddy
3633   python-clientform
3634   python-coherence
3635   python-configobj
3636   python-crypto
3637   python-cupshelpers
3638   python-elementtree
3639   python-epsilon
3640   python-evolution
3641   python-feedparser
3642   python-gdata
3643   python-gdbm
3644   python-gst0.10
3645   python-gtkglext1
3646   python-gtksourceview2
3647   python-httplib2
3648   python-louie
3649   python-mako
3650   python-markupsafe
3651   python-mechanize
3652   python-nevow
3653   python-notify
3654   python-opengl
3655   python-openssl
3656   python-pam
3657   python-pkg-resources
3658   python-pyasn1
3659   python-pysqlite2
3660   python-rdflib
3661   python-serial
3662   python-tagpy
3663   python-twisted-bin
3664   python-twisted-conch
3665   python-twisted-core
3666   python-twisted-web
3667   python-utidylib
3668   python-webkit
3669   python-xdg
3670   python-zope.interface
3671   remmina
3672   remmina-plugin-data
3673   remmina-plugin-rdp
3674   remmina-plugin-vnc
3675   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3676   rhythmbox-plugins
3677   rpm-common
3678   rpm2cpio
3679   seahorse-plugins
3680   shotwell
3681   software-center
3682   system-config-printer-udev
3683   telepathy-gabble
3684   telepathy-mission-control-5
3685   telepathy-salut
3686   tomboy
3687   totem
3688   totem-coherence
3689   totem-mozilla
3690   totem-plugins
3691   transmission-common
3692   xdg-user-dirs
3693   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
3694   xserver-xephyr
3695 </p></blockquote>
3696
3697 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3698
3699 <blockquote><p>
3700   cheese
3701   ekiga
3702   eog
3703   epiphany-extensions
3704   evolution-exchange
3705   fast-user-switch-applet
3706   file-roller
3707   gcalctool
3708   gconf-editor
3709   gdm
3710   gedit
3711   gedit-common
3712   gnome-games
3713   gnome-games-data
3714   gnome-nettool
3715   gnome-system-tools
3716   gnome-themes
3717   gnuchess
3718   gucharmap
3719   guile-1.8-libs
3720   libavahi-ui0
3721   libdmx1
3722   libgalago3
3723   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3724   libgtksourceview2.0-0
3725   liblircclient0
3726   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
3727   libspeexdsp1
3728   libsvga1
3729   rhythmbox
3730   seahorse
3731   sound-juicer
3732   system-config-printer
3733   totem-common
3734   transmission-gtk
3735   vinagre
3736   vino
3737 </p></blockquote>
3738
3739 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3740
3741 <blockquote><p>
3742   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3743 </p></blockquote>
3744
3745 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3746
3747 <blockquote><p>
3748 [nothing]
3749 </p></blockquote>
3750
3751 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3752
3753 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3754
3755 <blockquote><p>
3756   ksmserver
3757 </p></blockquote>
3758
3759 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3760
3761 <blockquote><p>
3762   kwin
3763   network-manager-kde
3764 </p></blockquote>
3765
3766 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3767
3768 <blockquote><p>
3769   arts
3770   dolphin
3771   freespacenotifier
3772   google-gadgets-gst
3773   google-gadgets-xul
3774   kappfinder
3775   kcalc
3776   kcharselect
3777   kde-core
3778   kde-plasma-desktop
3779   kde-standard
3780   kde-window-manager
3781   kdeartwork
3782   kdeartwork-emoticons
3783   kdeartwork-style
3784   kdeartwork-theme-icon
3785   kdebase
3786   kdebase-apps
3787   kdebase-workspace
3788   kdebase-workspace-bin
3789   kdebase-workspace-data
3790   kdeeject
3791   kdelibs
3792   kdeplasma-addons
3793   kdeutils
3794   kdewallpapers
3795   kdf
3796   kfloppy
3797   kgpg
3798   khelpcenter4
3799   kinfocenter
3800   konq-plugins-l10n
3801   konqueror-nsplugins
3802   kscreensaver
3803   kscreensaver-xsavers
3804   ktimer
3805   kwrite
3806   libgle3
3807   libkde4-ruby1.8
3808   libkonq5
3809   libkonq5-templates
3810   libnetpbm10
3811   libplasma-ruby
3812   libplasma-ruby1.8
3813   libqt4-ruby1.8
3814   marble-data
3815   marble-plugins
3816   netpbm
3817   nuvola-icon-theme
3818   plasma-dataengines-workspace
3819   plasma-desktop
3820   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
3821   plasma-runners-addons
3822   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3823   plasma-scriptengine-python
3824   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3825   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3826   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3827   plasma-scriptengines
3828   plasma-wallpapers-addons
3829   plasma-widget-folderview
3830   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3831   ruby
3832   sweeper
3833   update-notifier-kde
3834   xscreensaver-data-extra
3835   xscreensaver-gl
3836   xscreensaver-gl-extra
3837   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3838 </p></blockquote>
3839
3840 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3841
3842 <blockquote><p>
3843   ark
3844   google-gadgets-common
3845   google-gadgets-qt
3846   htdig
3847   kate
3848   kdebase-bin
3849   kdebase-data
3850   kdepasswd
3851   kfind
3852   klipper
3853   konq-plugins
3854   konqueror
3855   ksysguard
3856   ksysguardd
3857   libarchive1
3858   libcln6
3859   libeet1
3860   libeina-svn-06
3861   libggadget-1.0-0b
3862   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
3863   libgps19
3864   libkdecorations4
3865   libkephal4
3866   libkonq4
3867   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
3868   libkscreensaver5
3869   libksgrd4
3870   libksignalplotter4
3871   libkunitconversion4
3872   libkwineffects1a
3873   libmarblewidget4
3874   libntrack-qt4-1
3875   libntrack0
3876   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
3877   libplasmaclock4a
3878   libplasmagenericshell4
3879   libprocesscore4a
3880   libprocessui4a
3881   libqalculate5
3882   libqedje0a
3883   libqtruby4shared2
3884   libqzion0a
3885   libruby1.8
3886   libscim8c2a
3887   libsmokekdecore4-3
3888   libsmokekdeui4-3
3889   libsmokekfile3
3890   libsmokekhtml3
3891   libsmokekio3
3892   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
3893   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
3894   libsmokekparts3
3895   libsmokektexteditor3
3896   libsmokekutils3
3897   libsmokenepomuk3
3898   libsmokephonon3
3899   libsmokeplasma3
3900   libsmokeqtcore4-3
3901   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
3902   libsmokeqtgui4-3
3903   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
3904   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
3905   libsmokeqtscript4-3
3906   libsmokeqtsql4-3
3907   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
3908   libsmokeqttest4-3
3909   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
3910   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
3911   libsmokeqtxml4-3
3912   libsmokesolid3
3913   libsmokesoprano3
3914   libtaskmanager4a
3915   libtidy-0.99-0
3916   libweather-ion4a
3917   libxklavier16
3918   libxxf86misc1
3919   okteta
3920   oxygencursors
3921   plasma-dataengines-addons
3922   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
3923   plasma-widget-lancelot
3924   plasma-widgets-addons
3925   plasma-widgets-workspace
3926   polkit-kde-1
3927   ruby1.8
3928   systemsettings
3929   update-notifier-common
3930 </p></blockquote>
3931
3932 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
3933 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
3934 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
3935 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
3936
3937       </div>
3938       <div class="tags">
3939
3940
3941         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>.
3942
3943
3944       </div>
3945     </div>
3946     <div class="padding"></div>
3947
3948     <div class="entry">
3949       <div class="title">
3950         <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>
3951       </div>
3952       <div class="date">
3953         22nd November 2010
3954       </div>
3955       <div class="body">
3956         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
3957 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
3958 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
3959 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
3960 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
3961 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
3962 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
3963 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
3964 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
3965
3966 <p>I found
3967 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
3968 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
3969 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
3970 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
3971 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
3972 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
3973
3974 <pre>
3975 #!/bin/sh
3976
3977 # Based on
3978 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
3979
3980 set -e
3981 set -x
3982
3983 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
3984     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
3985     exit 1
3986 else
3987     host="$1"
3988 fi
3989
3990 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
3991     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
3992     exit 1
3993 fi
3994
3995 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
3996 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3997 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3998 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
3999
4000 img=$host.img
4001 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
4002 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
4003
4004 parted $img mklabel msdos
4005 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
4006 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
4007 parted $img set 1 boot on
4008
4009 modprobe dm-mod
4010 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
4011 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
4012
4013 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
4014 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
4015 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
4016
4017 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
4018 losetup -d /dev/loop0
4019 </pre>
4020
4021 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
4022 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
4023
4024 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
4025 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
4026 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
4027 seem to work just fine.</p>
4028
4029       </div>
4030       <div class="tags">
4031
4032
4033         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>.
4034
4035
4036       </div>
4037     </div>
4038     <div class="padding"></div>
4039
4040     <div class="entry">
4041       <div class="title">
4042         <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>
4043       </div>
4044       <div class="date">
4045         20th November 2010
4046       </div>
4047       <div class="body">
4048         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4049 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4050 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4051 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4052
4053 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4054 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4055 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4056
4057 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4058
4059 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4060
4061 <blockquote><p>
4062   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4063   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4064   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4065   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4066   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4067   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4068   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4069   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4070   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4071   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4072   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4073   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4074   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4075   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4076   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4077   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4078   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4079   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4080   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4081   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4082   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4083   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4084   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4085   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4086   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4087   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4088   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4089   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4090   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4091   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4092   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4093   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4094   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4095   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4096   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4097   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4098   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4099   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4100   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4101   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4102   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4103   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4104   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4105   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4106   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4107   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4108   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4109   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4110   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4111   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4112   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4113   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4114   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4115   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4116   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4117   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4118   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4119   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4120   zip
4121 </p></blockquote>
4122
4123 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4124
4125 <blockquote><p>
4126   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4127   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4128   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4129   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4130   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4131   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4132   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4133   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4134   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4135   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4136   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4137   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4138   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4139   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4140   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4141   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4142   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4143   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4144   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4145   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4146   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4147   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4148   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4149   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4150   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4151   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4152   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4153   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4154   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4155 </p></blockquote>
4156
4157 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4158
4159 <blockquote><p>
4160   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4161 </p></blockquote>
4162
4163 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4164
4165 <blockquote><p>
4166 [nothing]
4167 </p></blockquote>
4168
4169 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4170
4171 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4172
4173 <blockquote><p>
4174   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4175   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4176   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4177   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4178   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4179   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4180   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4181   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4182   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4183   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4184   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4185   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4186   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4187   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4188   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4189   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4190   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4191   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4192   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4193   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4194   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4195   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4196   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4197   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4198   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4199   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4200   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4201   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4202   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4203   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4204 </p></blockquote>
4205
4206 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4207
4208 <blockquote><p>
4209   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4210   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4211   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4212   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4213   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4214   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4215   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4216   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4217   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4218   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4219   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4220   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4221   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4222   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4223   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4224   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4225   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4226   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4227   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4228   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4229   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4230   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4231   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4232   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4233   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4234   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4235   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4236   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4237   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4238   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4239   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4240   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4241   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4242 </p></blockquote>
4243
4244 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4245
4246 <blockquote><p>
4247   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4248   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4249   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4250   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4251   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4252   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4253   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4254 </p></blockquote>
4255
4256 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4257
4258 <blockquote><p>
4259   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4260 </p></blockquote>
4261
4262       </div>
4263       <div class="tags">
4264
4265
4266         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>.
4267
4268
4269       </div>
4270     </div>
4271     <div class="padding"></div>
4272
4273     <div class="entry">
4274       <div class="title">
4275         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
4276       </div>
4277       <div class="date">
4278         20th November 2010
4279       </div>
4280       <div class="body">
4281         <p>Answering
4282 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
4283 call from the Gnash project</a> for
4284 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
4285 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
4286 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
4287 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
4288 releases out more often.</p>
4289
4290 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
4291 I have considered setting up a <a
4292 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
4293 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
4294 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
4295 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
4296 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
4297 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
4298 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
4299 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
4300 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
4301 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
4302 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
4303 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
4304
4305       </div>
4306       <div class="tags">
4307
4308
4309         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>.
4310
4311
4312       </div>
4313     </div>
4314     <div class="padding"></div>
4315
4316     <div class="entry">
4317       <div class="title">
4318         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
4319       </div>
4320       <div class="date">
4321          9th November 2010
4322       </div>
4323       <div class="body">
4324         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
4325
4326 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
4327 3D linked in from
4328 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
4329 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
4330
4331       </div>
4332       <div class="tags">
4333
4334
4335         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>.
4336
4337
4338       </div>
4339     </div>
4340     <div class="padding"></div>
4341
4342     <div class="entry">
4343       <div class="title">
4344         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
4345       </div>
4346       <div class="date">
4347         24th October 2010
4348       </div>
4349       <div class="body">
4350         <p>Some updates.</p>
4351
4352 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
4353 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
4354 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
4355 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
4356 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
4357 :)</p>
4358
4359 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
4360 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
4361 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
4362 It is called
4363 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
4364 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
4365 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
4366 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
4367 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
4368 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
4369
4370 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
4371 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
4372 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
4373 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
4374 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
4375 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
4376 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
4377 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
4378 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
4379 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
4380
4381       </div>
4382       <div class="tags">
4383
4384
4385         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>.
4386
4387
4388       </div>
4389     </div>
4390     <div class="padding"></div>
4391
4392     <div class="entry">
4393       <div class="title">
4394         <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>
4395       </div>
4396       <div class="date">
4397          4th September 2010
4398       </div>
4399       <div class="body">
4400         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
4401 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
4402 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
4403 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
4404 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
4405 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
4406 installed.</p>
4407
4408 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
4409 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
4410 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
4411 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
4412 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4413 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
4414 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
4415 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
4416 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
4417
4418 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
4419 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
4420 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
4421 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
4422 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
4423 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
4424 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
4425 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
4426 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
4427 pages they want to visit.</p>
4428
4429 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
4430 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
4431 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
4432 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
4433 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
4434 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
4435 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
4436 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
4437 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
4438 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
4439 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
4440
4441       </div>
4442       <div class="tags">
4443
4444
4445         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>.
4446
4447
4448       </div>
4449     </div>
4450     <div class="padding"></div>
4451
4452     <div class="entry">
4453       <div class="title">
4454         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
4455       </div>
4456       <div class="date">
4457         27th July 2010
4458       </div>
4459       <div class="body">
4460         <p>I discovered this while doing
4461 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
4462 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
4463 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
4464 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
4465 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
4466
4467 <p>An example is from todays
4468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
4469 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
4470 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
4471 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
4472 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
4473 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
4474 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
4475
4476 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
4477
4478 <blockquote><pre>
4479 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
4480  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
4481   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
4482 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
4483  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
4484 </pre></blockquote>
4485
4486 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
4487 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
4488 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
4489 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
4490 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
4491 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
4492 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
4493 of dependency loops.</p>
4494
4495 <p>Thanks to
4496 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
4497 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
4498 dependencies
4499 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
4500 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
4501
4502 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
4503 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
4504 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
4505 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
4506 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
4507 it.</p>
4508
4509       </div>
4510       <div class="tags">
4511
4512
4513         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>.
4514
4515
4516       </div>
4517     </div>
4518     <div class="padding"></div>
4519
4520     <div class="entry">
4521       <div class="title">
4522         <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>
4523       </div>
4524       <div class="date">
4525         17th July 2010
4526       </div>
4527       <div class="body">
4528         <p>This is a
4529 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
4530 on my
4531 <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
4532 work</a> on
4533 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
4534 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
4535
4536 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
4537 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
4538 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
4539 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
4540
4541 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
4542 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
4543 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
4544
4545 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
4546
4547 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
4548 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
4549 the web.
4550
4551 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
4552 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
4553 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
4554 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
4555 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
4556 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
4557
4558 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
4559 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
4560 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
4561 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
4562 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
4563 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
4564 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
4565 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
4566 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
4567 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
4568 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
4569 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
4570 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
4571 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
4572 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
4573 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
4574
4575 <blockquote><pre>
4576 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4577   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4578   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4579   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4580   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4581   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4582   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4583
4584 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4585   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4586   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
4587   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
4588   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
4589   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
4590 </pre></blockquote>
4591
4592 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
4593 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
4594 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
4595 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4596 also exist.</p>
4597
4598 <blockquote><pre>
4599 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4600 objectclass: top
4601 objectclass: dnsdomain
4602 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4603 dc: tjener
4604 arecord: 10.0.2.2
4605 associateddomain: tjener.intern
4606
4607 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4608 objectclass: top
4609 objectclass: dnsdomain2
4610 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4611 dc: 2
4612 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
4613 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
4614 </pre></blockquote>
4615
4616 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
4617 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
4618 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
4619 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
4620 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
4621 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
4622 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
4623 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
4624 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
4625 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
4626 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
4627 instead.</p>
4628
4629 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
4630 like this:</p>
4631
4632 <blockquote><pre>
4633 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4634   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4635   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4636   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4637   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4638   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4639
4640 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4641   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
4642 </pre></blockquote>
4643
4644 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
4645 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
4646 reverse lookups.</p>
4647
4648 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
4649 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
4650 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
4651 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
4652
4653 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
4654 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
4655 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
4656
4657 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
4658 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
4659 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
4660 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
4661 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
4662
4663 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
4664 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
4665 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
4666 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
4667 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
4668
4669 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
4670 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
4671 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
4672 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
4673 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
4674 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
4675
4676 <blockquote><pre>
4677 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
4678     SUP top
4679     AUXILIARY
4680     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
4681           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
4682           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
4683           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
4684           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
4685     ))
4686 </pre></blockquote>
4687
4688 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
4689 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
4690 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
4691 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
4692 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
4693 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
4694
4695 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
4696
4697 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
4698 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
4699 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
4700 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
4701 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
4702
4703 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
4704 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
4705 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
4706 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
4707
4708 <blockquote><pre>
4709 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
4710 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
4711 </pre></blockquote>
4712
4713 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
4714 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
4715 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
4716 search result is this entry:</p>
4717
4718 <blockquote><pre>
4719 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4720 cn: dhcp
4721 objectClass: top
4722 objectClass: dhcpServer
4723 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4724 </pre></blockquote>
4725
4726 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
4727 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
4728 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
4729 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
4730 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
4731 The search result is this entry:</p>
4732
4733 <blockquote><pre>
4734 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4735 cn: DHCP Config
4736 objectClass: top
4737 objectClass: dhcpService
4738 objectClass: dhcpOptions
4739 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4740 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
4741 dhcpStatements: authoritative
4742 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
4743 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
4744 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
4745 </pre></blockquote>
4746
4747 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
4748 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
4749 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
4750 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
4751 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
4752 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
4753 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
4754 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
4755 related computer objects.</p>
4756
4757 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
4758 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
4759 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
4760 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
4761 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
4762 like:</p>
4763
4764 <blockquote><pre>
4765 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4766 cn: hostname
4767 objectClass: top
4768 objectClass: dhcpHost
4769 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4770 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
4771 </pre></blockquote>
4772
4773 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
4774 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
4775 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
4776 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
4777 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
4778 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
4779 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
4780 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
4781 structural object class.
4782
4783 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4784
4785 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
4786 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
4787 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
4788 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
4789 in the configuration.</p>
4790
4791 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
4792 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
4793 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
4794 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
4795 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
4796 structure.</p>
4797
4798 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
4799 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
4800
4801 <blockquote><pre>
4802 ou=services
4803   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
4804     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
4805     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4806       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4807         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4808     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4809       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4810         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4811     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
4812       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
4813 </pre></blockquote>
4814
4815 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
4816 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
4817 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
4818 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
4819
4820 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
4821 like this:</p>
4822
4823 <blockquote><pre>
4824 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4825 dc: hostname
4826 objectClass: top
4827 objectClass: dhcpHost
4828 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4829 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
4830 associateddomain: hostname.intern
4831 arecord: 10.11.12.13
4832 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4833 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
4834 </pre></blockquote>
4835
4836 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
4837 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
4838 auxiliary object class.</p>
4839
4840       </div>
4841       <div class="tags">
4842
4843
4844         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>.
4845
4846
4847       </div>
4848     </div>
4849     <div class="padding"></div>
4850
4851     <div class="entry">
4852       <div class="title">
4853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
4854       </div>
4855       <div class="date">
4856         14th July 2010
4857       </div>
4858       <div class="body">
4859         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
4860 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
4861 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
4862 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
4863 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
4864
4865 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
4866 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
4867
4868 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
4869 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
4870 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
4871 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
4872 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
4873 to a slave DNS server.</p>
4874
4875 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
4876 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
4877 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
4878 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
4879 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
4880 seem to work.</p>
4881
4882 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
4883 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
4884 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
4885 this:</p>
4886
4887 <blockquote><pre>
4888   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4889   cn: hostname
4890   objectClass: dhcphost
4891   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4892   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
4893   associateddomain: hostname.intern
4894   arecord: 10.11.12.13
4895   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4896   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
4897   ldapconfigsound: Y
4898 </pre></blockquote>
4899
4900 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
4901 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
4902 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
4903 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
4904
4905 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
4906 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
4907 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
4908 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
4909 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
4910 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
4911 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
4912 might be a good place to put it.</p>
4913
4914 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4915 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4916
4917       </div>
4918       <div class="tags">
4919
4920
4921         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>.
4922
4923
4924       </div>
4925     </div>
4926     <div class="padding"></div>
4927
4928     <div class="entry">
4929       <div class="title">
4930         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
4931       </div>
4932       <div class="date">
4933         11th July 2010
4934       </div>
4935       <div class="body">
4936         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
4937 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
4938 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
4939 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
4940
4941 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
4942 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
4943 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
4944 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
4945 LTSP clients.</p>
4946
4947 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
4948 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
4949 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
4950
4951 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
4952 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
4953 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
4954
4955 <blockquote><pre>
4956 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
4957 #
4958 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
4959 #
4960 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
4961 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
4962 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
4963 #
4964 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
4965 # existence of attribute names.
4966 #
4967 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
4968 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
4969 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
4970 #
4971 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
4972 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
4973 #
4974 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
4975 #     SUP top
4976 #     AUXILIARY
4977 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
4978
4979 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
4980 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
4981     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
4982     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
4983         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
4984         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
4985             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
4986             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
4987             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
4988             # bass value on to clients
4989             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
4990         done
4991     done
4992 fi
4993 </pre></blockquote>
4994
4995 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
4996 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
4997 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
4998 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
4999 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
5000
5001 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5002 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5003
5004 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
5005 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
5006 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
5007 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
5008 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
5009 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
5010
5011       </div>
5012       <div class="tags">
5013
5014
5015         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>.
5016
5017
5018       </div>
5019     </div>
5020     <div class="padding"></div>
5021
5022     <div class="entry">
5023       <div class="title">
5024         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5025       </div>
5026       <div class="date">
5027          9th July 2010
5028       </div>
5029       <div class="body">
5030         <p>Since
5031 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
5032 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
5033 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
5034 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
5035 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
5036 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
5037 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
5038 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
5039 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
5040 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
5041 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
5042 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
5043 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
5044
5045       </div>
5046       <div class="tags">
5047
5048
5049         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>.
5050
5051
5052       </div>
5053     </div>
5054     <div class="padding"></div>
5055
5056     <div class="entry">
5057       <div class="title">
5058         <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>
5059       </div>
5060       <div class="date">
5061          3rd July 2010
5062       </div>
5063       <div class="body">
5064         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5065 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5066 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5067 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5068 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5069 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5070 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5071 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5072
5073 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5074 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5075 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5076 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5077 publish the difference.</p>
5078
5079 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5080
5081 <blockquote><p>
5082   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5083   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5084   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5085   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5086   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5087   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5088   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5089   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5090 </p></blockquote>
5091
5092 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5093
5094 <blockquote><p>
5095   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5096   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5097   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5098   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5099   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5100   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5101   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5102   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5103   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5104   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5105   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5106   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5107   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5108   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5109   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5110   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5111   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5112   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5113   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5114   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5115 </p></blockquote>
5116
5117 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5118
5119 <blockquote><p>
5120   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5121   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5122   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5123   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5124   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5125   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5126   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5127   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5128   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5129   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5130   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5131   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5132   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5133   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5134   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5135   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5136   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5137   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5138   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5139   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5140   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5141 </p></blockquote>
5142
5143 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5144
5145 <blockquote><p>
5146   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5147   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5148   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5149 </p></blockquote>
5150
5151 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5152 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5153 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5154 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5155 the difference somewhat.
5156
5157       </div>
5158       <div class="tags">
5159
5160
5161         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>.
5162
5163
5164       </div>
5165     </div>
5166     <div class="padding"></div>
5167
5168     <div class="entry">
5169       <div class="title">
5170         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5171       </div>
5172       <div class="date">
5173         28th June 2010
5174       </div>
5175       <div class="body">
5176         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5177 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5178 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5179 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5180 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5181 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5182 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5183 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5184 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5185 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5186
5187 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5188 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5189 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5190 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5191 released.</p>
5192
5193 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5194 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5195 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5196 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5197
5198 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5199 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5200
5201 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5202 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5203 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5204 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5205 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5206
5207       </div>
5208       <div class="tags">
5209
5210
5211         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>.
5212
5213
5214       </div>
5215     </div>
5216     <div class="padding"></div>
5217
5218     <div class="entry">
5219       <div class="title">
5220         <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>
5221       </div>
5222       <div class="date">
5223         24th June 2010
5224       </div>
5225       <div class="body">
5226         <p>A while back, I
5227 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5228 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5229 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5230 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5231
5232 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5233 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5234 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5235 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5236
5237 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5238 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5239 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5240 Debian Edu.</p>
5241
5242 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5243 the
5244 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5245 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5246 available today from IETF.</p>
5247
5248 <pre>
5249 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5250 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5251 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5252  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5253         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5254         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5255 -       SUP top
5256 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5257         MUST cn
5258         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5259         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5260 </pre>
5261
5262 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
5263 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
5264 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
5265
5266 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5267 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5268
5269       </div>
5270       <div class="tags">
5271
5272
5273         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>.
5274
5275
5276       </div>
5277     </div>
5278     <div class="padding"></div>
5279
5280     <div class="entry">
5281       <div class="title">
5282         <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>
5283       </div>
5284       <div class="date">
5285         16th June 2010
5286       </div>
5287       <div class="body">
5288         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
5289 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
5290 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
5291 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
5292 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
5293 this:
5294
5295 <blockquote><pre>
5296 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5297 tasksel --new-install
5298 </pre></blockquote>
5299
5300 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
5301 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
5302 any output what so ever.
5303
5304 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
5305 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
5306 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
5307 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
5308 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
5309 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
5310 code like this:
5311
5312 <blockquote><pre>
5313 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5314 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
5315 $cmd
5316 </pre></blockquote>
5317
5318 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
5319 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
5320 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
5321 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
5322 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
5323 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
5324 installation.</p>
5325
5326 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
5327 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
5328 like this.</p>
5329
5330       </div>
5331       <div class="tags">
5332
5333
5334         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>.
5335
5336
5337       </div>
5338     </div>
5339     <div class="padding"></div>
5340
5341     <div class="entry">
5342       <div class="title">
5343         <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>
5344       </div>
5345       <div class="date">
5346         13th June 2010
5347       </div>
5348       <div class="body">
5349         <p>My
5350 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
5351 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
5352 finally made the upgrade logs available from
5353 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
5354 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
5355 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
5356 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
5357
5358 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
5359 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
5360 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
5361 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
5362 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
5363 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
5364 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
5365 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
5366
5367 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
5368 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
5369 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
5370 too surprising.</p>
5371
5372 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
5373 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
5374 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
5375 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
5376 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
5377 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
5378 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
5379 continue.</p>
5380
5381 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
5382 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
5383   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
5384   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
5385   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
5386   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
5387   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
5388   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5389   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5390   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5391   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5392   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5393   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5394   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5395   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5396   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5397   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5398   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5399   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5400   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5401   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5402   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5403   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5404   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5405   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5406   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5407   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5408   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5409   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
5410   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
5411
5412 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
5413
5414 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
5415   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
5416   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
5417   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
5418   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5419   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
5420   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
5421   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
5422   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
5423   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
5424   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5425   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
5426   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5427   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
5428   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
5429   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
5430   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
5431   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
5432   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
5433   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
5434   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
5435   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
5436   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
5437   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
5438   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5439   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
5440   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
5441   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
5442   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
5443   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5444   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5445   zip</p>
5446
5447 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
5448
5449 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
5450   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
5451   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
5452   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
5453   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
5454   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
5455   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5456   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5457   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5458   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5459   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5460   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5461   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5462   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5463   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5464   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5465   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5466   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5467   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5468   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5469   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5470   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5471   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5472   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5473   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5474   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5475   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5476   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
5477
5478 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
5479 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
5480   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5481   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
5482   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
5483   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5484   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
5485   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
5486   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5487   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
5488   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
5489   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
5490   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
5491   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
5492   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
5493   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
5494   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
5495   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5496   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5497   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5498   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
5499   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5500   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
5501   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
5502   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5503   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5504   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
5505   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
5506   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
5507   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
5508   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
5509   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
5510   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
5511   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
5512   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
5513   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5514   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5515   xulrunner-1.9</p>
5516
5517
5518       </div>
5519       <div class="tags">
5520
5521
5522         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>.
5523
5524
5525       </div>
5526     </div>
5527     <div class="padding"></div>
5528
5529     <div class="entry">
5530       <div class="title">
5531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
5532       </div>
5533       <div class="date">
5534         11th June 2010
5535       </div>
5536       <div class="body">
5537         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
5538 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
5539 have been discovered and reported in the process
5540 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
5541 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
5542 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
5543 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
5544 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
5545
5546 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
5547 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
5548 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
5549 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
5550 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
5551 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
5552
5553 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
5554 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
5555 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5556 is created.  The bug report
5557 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
5558 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
5559 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
5560 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
5561 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
5562 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
5563 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
5564 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
5565 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
5566 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
5567 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
5568 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
5569 Debian Squeeze.</p>
5570
5571 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
5572 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
5573 trick:</p>
5574
5575 <blockquote><pre>
5576 #!/bin/sh
5577 set -ex
5578
5579 if [ "$1" ] ; then
5580     desktop=$1
5581 else
5582     desktop=gnome
5583 fi
5584
5585 from=lenny
5586 to=squeeze
5587
5588 exec &lt; /dev/null
5589 unset LANG
5590 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
5591 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
5592 fuser -mv .
5593 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
5594 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5595 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
5596 #!/bin/sh
5597 exit 101
5598 EOF
5599 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
5600 exit_cleanup() {
5601     umount $tmpdir/proc
5602 }
5603 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
5604 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
5605 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
5606
5607 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
5608
5609 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
5610 # to return the correct answers.
5611 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
5612     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
5613
5614 # Include the desktop and laptop task
5615 for test in desktop laptop ; do
5616     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
5617 #!/bin/sh
5618 exit 2
5619 EOF
5620     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
5621 done
5622
5623 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5624 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
5625 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
5626 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
5627
5628 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
5629 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5630 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5631 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
5632 fuser -mv
5633 </pre></blockquote>
5634
5635 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
5636 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
5637 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
5638 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
5639 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
5640 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
5641
5642 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
5643 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
5644 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
5645 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
5646 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
5647 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
5648 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
5649
5650 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
5651 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
5652 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
5653 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
5654 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
5655 packages.</p>
5656
5657       </div>
5658       <div class="tags">
5659
5660
5661         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>.
5662
5663
5664       </div>
5665     </div>
5666     <div class="padding"></div>
5667
5668     <div class="entry">
5669       <div class="title">
5670         <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>
5671       </div>
5672       <div class="date">
5673          6th June 2010
5674       </div>
5675       <div class="body">
5676         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
5677 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
5678 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
5679 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
5680 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
5681 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
5682 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
5683
5684 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
5685 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
5686 COLUMNS):</p>
5687
5688 <blockquote><pre>
5689 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
5690 previous=N
5691 PREVLEVEL=
5692 RUNLEVEL=
5693 runlevel=S
5694 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
5695 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
5696 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
5697 </pre></blockquote>
5698
5699 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
5700 script.</p>
5701
5702 <blockquote><pre>
5703 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
5704 previous=N
5705 PREVLEVEL=N
5706 RUNLEVEL=S
5707 runlevel=S
5708 </pre></blockquote>
5709
5710 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
5711 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
5712 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
5713
5714 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
5715 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
5716 choice.</p>
5717
5718       </div>
5719       <div class="tags">
5720
5721
5722         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>.
5723
5724
5725       </div>
5726     </div>
5727     <div class="padding"></div>
5728
5729     <div class="entry">
5730       <div class="title">
5731         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
5732       </div>
5733       <div class="date">
5734          6th June 2010
5735       </div>
5736       <div class="body">
5737         <p>Via the
5738 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
5739 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
5740 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
5741 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
5742 following the standards wars of today.</p>
5743
5744       </div>
5745       <div class="tags">
5746
5747
5748         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>.
5749
5750
5751       </div>
5752     </div>
5753     <div class="padding"></div>
5754
5755     <div class="entry">
5756       <div class="title">
5757         <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>
5758       </div>
5759       <div class="date">
5760          3rd June 2010
5761       </div>
5762       <div class="body">
5763         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
5764 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
5765 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
5766 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
5767 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
5768
5769 <blockquote><pre>
5770 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
5771   vendor                    count
5772   Dell Computer Corporation     1
5773     PowerEdge 1750              1
5774   IBM                           1
5775     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
5776   Intel                         2
5777   [no-dmi-info]                 3
5778 maintainer:~#
5779 </pre></blockquote>
5780
5781 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
5782 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
5783 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
5784 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
5785 option to list the individual machines.</p>
5786
5787 <p>A larger list is
5788 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
5789 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
5790 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
5791 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
5792 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
5793 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
5794 collector.</p>
5795
5796       </div>
5797       <div class="tags">
5798
5799
5800         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>.
5801
5802
5803       </div>
5804     </div>
5805     <div class="padding"></div>
5806
5807     <div class="entry">
5808       <div class="title">
5809         <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>
5810       </div>
5811       <div class="date">
5812          1st June 2010
5813       </div>
5814       <div class="body">
5815         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
5816 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
5817 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
5818 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
5819 wait.</p>
5820
5821 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
5822 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
5823 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
5824 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
5825 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
5826 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
5827
5828 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
5829 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
5830 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
5831 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
5832 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
5833 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
5834 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
5835 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
5836
5837 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
5838
5839       </div>
5840       <div class="tags">
5841
5842
5843         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>.
5844
5845
5846       </div>
5847     </div>
5848     <div class="padding"></div>
5849
5850     <div class="entry">
5851       <div class="title">
5852         <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>
5853       </div>
5854       <div class="date">
5855         27th May 2010
5856       </div>
5857       <div class="body">
5858         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
5859 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
5860 issues are known and should be solved:
5861
5862 <p><ul>
5863
5864 <li>The wicd package seen to
5865 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
5866 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
5867 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
5868 seem to be on the case.</li>
5869
5870 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
5871 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
5872 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
5873 maintainer is on the case.</li>
5874
5875 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
5876 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
5877 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
5878 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
5879 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
5880 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
5881 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
5882 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
5883
5884 </ul></p>
5885
5886 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
5887 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
5888 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
5889 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
5890
5891 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5892 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5893 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5894 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5895
5896 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
5897
5898       </div>
5899       <div class="tags">
5900
5901
5902         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>.
5903
5904
5905       </div>
5906     </div>
5907     <div class="padding"></div>
5908
5909     <div class="entry">
5910       <div class="title">
5911         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
5912       </div>
5913       <div class="date">
5914         22nd May 2010
5915       </div>
5916       <div class="body">
5917         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
5918 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
5919 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
5920 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
5921
5922 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
5923 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
5924 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
5925 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
5926 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
5927 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
5928 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
5929 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
5930 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
5931 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
5932 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
5933 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
5934 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
5935 going to work.</p>
5936
5937 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
5938 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
5939 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
5940 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
5941 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
5942 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
5943 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
5944 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
5945 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
5946 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
5947 Edu.</p>
5948
5949 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
5950 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
5951 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
5952 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
5953 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
5954 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
5955
5956 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
5957 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
5958
5959       </div>
5960       <div class="tags">
5961
5962
5963         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>.
5964
5965
5966       </div>
5967     </div>
5968     <div class="padding"></div>
5969
5970     <div class="entry">
5971       <div class="title">
5972         <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>
5973       </div>
5974       <div class="date">
5975         14th May 2010
5976       </div>
5977       <div class="body">
5978         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
5979 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
5980 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
5981 expected, if I am to believe the
5982 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
5983 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
5984 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
5985 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
5986 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
5987 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
5988 version.</p>
5989
5990 More information about
5991 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5992 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
5993 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
5994 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
5995
5996 <blockquote><pre>
5997 CONCURRENCY=none
5998 </pre></blockquote>
5999
6000 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6001 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6002 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6003 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6004
6005       </div>
6006       <div class="tags">
6007
6008
6009         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>.
6010
6011
6012       </div>
6013     </div>
6014     <div class="padding"></div>
6015
6016     <div class="entry">
6017       <div class="title">
6018         <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>
6019       </div>
6020       <div class="date">
6021         14th May 2010
6022       </div>
6023       <div class="body">
6024         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
6025 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
6026 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
6027 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
6028 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
6029 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
6030 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
6031 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
6032
6033 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
6034 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
6035 this on the collector host:</p>
6036
6037 <blockquote><pre>
6038 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
6039 </pre></blockquote>
6040
6041 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
6042 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
6043
6044 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6045 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6046 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6047 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6048 written yet.</p>
6049
6050       </div>
6051       <div class="tags">
6052
6053
6054         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>.
6055
6056
6057       </div>
6058     </div>
6059     <div class="padding"></div>
6060
6061     <div class="entry">
6062       <div class="title">
6063         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6064       </div>
6065       <div class="date">
6066         13th May 2010
6067       </div>
6068       <div class="body">
6069         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6070 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6071 has been
6072 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6073
6074 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6075 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6076 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6077 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6078 based boot system.  Tollef is
6079 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6080 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6081 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6082 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6083 at the moment do not.</p>
6084
6085 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6086 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6087 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6088 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6089 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6090 way forward.</p>
6091
6092 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6093 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6094 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6095 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6096 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6097 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6098 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6099 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6100 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6101
6102       </div>
6103       <div class="tags">
6104
6105
6106         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>.
6107
6108
6109       </div>
6110     </div>
6111     <div class="padding"></div>
6112
6113     <div class="entry">
6114       <div class="title">
6115         <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>
6116       </div>
6117       <div class="date">
6118          6th May 2010
6119       </div>
6120       <div class="body">
6121         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6122 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6123 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6124 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6125 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6126 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6127 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6128
6129 <blockquote><pre>
6130 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6131 </pre></blockquote>
6132
6133 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6134 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6135 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6136 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6137 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6138 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6139 make this happen.</p>
6140
6141 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6142 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6143 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6144 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6145 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6146
6147 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6148 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6149 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6150 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6151
6152 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6153 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6154 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6155 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6156
6157       </div>
6158       <div class="tags">
6159
6160
6161         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>.
6162
6163
6164       </div>
6165     </div>
6166     <div class="padding"></div>
6167
6168     <div class="entry">
6169       <div class="title">
6170         <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>
6171       </div>
6172       <div class="date">
6173         27th July 2009
6174       </div>
6175       <div class="body">
6176         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6177 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6178 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6179 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6180 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6181 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6182 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6183
6184 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6185 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6186 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6187
6188       </div>
6189       <div class="tags">
6190
6191
6192         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>.
6193
6194
6195       </div>
6196     </div>
6197     <div class="padding"></div>
6198
6199     <div class="entry">
6200       <div class="title">
6201         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6202       </div>
6203       <div class="date">
6204         22nd July 2009
6205       </div>
6206       <div class="body">
6207         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6208 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6209 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6210 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6211 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6212 the package up to date.</p>
6213
6214 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6215 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6216 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6217 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6218 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6219 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6220 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6221 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6222 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6223 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6224 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6225 working on the future release.</p>
6226
6227 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6228 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6229
6230       </div>
6231       <div class="tags">
6232
6233
6234         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>.
6235
6236
6237       </div>
6238     </div>
6239     <div class="padding"></div>
6240
6241     <div class="entry">
6242       <div class="title">
6243         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6244       </div>
6245       <div class="date">
6246         24th June 2009
6247       </div>
6248       <div class="body">
6249         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6250 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6251 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6252 funded
6253 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6254 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6255 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6256 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6257 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6258 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6259
6260 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6261 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
6262 boot:</p>
6263
6264 <ul>
6265
6266 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
6267
6268 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
6269    clock is in UTC.</li>
6270
6271 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
6272    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6273    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
6274
6275 </ul>
6276
6277 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
6278 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
6279 Villegas</a>.
6280
6281 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
6282 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
6283 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
6284 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
6285 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
6286 using this.</p>
6287
6288 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
6289 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
6290 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
6291 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
6292 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
6293 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
6294 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
6295
6296       </div>
6297       <div class="tags">
6298
6299
6300         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>.
6301
6302
6303       </div>
6304     </div>
6305     <div class="padding"></div>
6306
6307     <div class="entry">
6308       <div class="title">
6309         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
6310       </div>
6311       <div class="date">
6312         17th May 2009
6313       </div>
6314       <div class="body">
6315         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
6316 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
6317 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
6318 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
6319 dager siden kom
6320 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
6321 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
6322 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
6323 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
6324 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
6325
6326 <blockquote>
6327 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
6328 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
6329 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
6330 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
6331 </blockquote>
6332
6333 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
6334 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
6335 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
6336 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
6337 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
6338
6339 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
6340 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
6341 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
6342
6343       </div>
6344       <div class="tags">
6345
6346
6347         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>.
6348
6349
6350       </div>
6351     </div>
6352     <div class="padding"></div>
6353
6354     <div class="entry">
6355       <div class="title">
6356         <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>
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="date">
6359          7th May 2009
6360       </div>
6361       <div class="body">
6362         <p>Kom over
6363 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
6364 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
6365 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
6366 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
6367 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
6368 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
6369 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
6370
6371       </div>
6372       <div class="tags">
6373
6374
6375         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>.
6376
6377
6378       </div>
6379     </div>
6380     <div class="padding"></div>
6381
6382     <div class="entry">
6383       <div class="title">
6384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
6385       </div>
6386       <div class="date">
6387          2nd May 2009
6388       </div>
6389       <div class="body">
6390         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
6391 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
6392 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
6393 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
6394 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
6395 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
6396 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
6397 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
6398 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
6399 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
6400 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
6401 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
6402 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
6403 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
6404 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
6405 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
6406 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
6407 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
6408 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
6409 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
6410
6411 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
6412 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
6413 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
6414 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
6415 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
6416 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
6417 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
6418 betydelige.</p>
6419
6420       </div>
6421       <div class="tags">
6422
6423
6424         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>.
6425
6426
6427       </div>
6428     </div>
6429     <div class="padding"></div>
6430
6431     <div class="entry">
6432       <div class="title">
6433         <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>
6434       </div>
6435       <div class="date">
6436          2nd May 2009
6437       </div>
6438       <div class="body">
6439         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
6440 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
6441 do not yet know them.</p>
6442
6443 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
6444 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
6445 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
6446 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
6447 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
6448 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
6449 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
6450 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
6451 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
6452 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
6453 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
6454
6455 <p>The second one is
6456 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
6457 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
6458 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
6459 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
6460 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
6461 and the company behind it is running
6462 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
6463 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
6464 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
6465 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
6466 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
6467 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
6468 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
6469 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
6470
6471 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
6472 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
6473 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
6474 surrounded by today.</p>
6475
6476       </div>
6477       <div class="tags">
6478
6479
6480         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>.
6481
6482
6483       </div>
6484     </div>
6485     <div class="padding"></div>
6486
6487     <div class="entry">
6488       <div class="title">
6489         <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>
6490       </div>
6491       <div class="date">
6492         28th April 2009
6493       </div>
6494       <div class="body">
6495         <p>Julien Blache
6496 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
6497 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
6498 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
6499 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
6500 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
6501 properties.</p>
6502
6503       </div>
6504       <div class="tags">
6505
6506
6507         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>.
6508
6509
6510       </div>
6511     </div>
6512     <div class="padding"></div>
6513
6514     <div class="entry">
6515       <div class="title">
6516         <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>
6517       </div>
6518       <div class="date">
6519         30th March 2009
6520       </div>
6521       <div class="body">
6522         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
6523 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
6524 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
6525 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
6526 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
6527 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
6528 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
6529 application.</p>
6530
6531 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
6532 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
6533 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
6534 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
6535 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
6536 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
6537 blocked from doing so.</p>
6538
6539 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
6540 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
6541 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
6542 requirements change.</p>
6543
6544 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
6545 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
6546 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
6547
6548       </div>
6549       <div class="tags">
6550
6551
6552         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>.
6553
6554
6555       </div>
6556     </div>
6557     <div class="padding"></div>
6558
6559     <div class="entry">
6560       <div class="title">
6561         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
6562       </div>
6563       <div class="date">
6564         29th March 2009
6565       </div>
6566       <div class="body">
6567         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
6568 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
6569 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
6570 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
6571 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
6572 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
6573 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
6574 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
6575 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
6576 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
6577 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
6578 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
6579 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
6580 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
6581 now. :)</p>
6582
6583       </div>
6584       <div class="tags">
6585
6586
6587         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>.
6588
6589
6590       </div>
6591     </div>
6592     <div class="padding"></div>
6593
6594     <div class="entry">
6595       <div class="title">
6596         <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>
6597       </div>
6598       <div class="date">
6599         29th March 2009
6600       </div>
6601       <div class="body">
6602         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
6603 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
6604 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
6605 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
6606 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
6607 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
6608
6609 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
6610 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
6611 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
6612 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
6613 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
6614 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
6615 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
6616 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
6617 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
6618 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
6619 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
6620 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
6621 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
6622
6623 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
6624 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
6625 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
6626 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
6627
6628 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
6629 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
6630
6631 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
6632 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
6633 new IETF work group?</p>
6634
6635       </div>
6636       <div class="tags">
6637
6638
6639         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>.
6640
6641
6642       </div>
6643     </div>
6644     <div class="padding"></div>
6645
6646     <div class="entry">
6647       <div class="title">
6648         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
6649       </div>
6650       <div class="date">
6651         15th February 2009
6652       </div>
6653       <div class="body">
6654         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
6655 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
6656 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
6657 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
6658 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
6659 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
6660 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
6661 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
6662 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
6663 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
6664 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
6665 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
6666
6667       </div>
6668       <div class="tags">
6669
6670
6671         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>.
6672
6673
6674       </div>
6675     </div>
6676     <div class="padding"></div>
6677
6678     <div class="entry">
6679       <div class="title">
6680         <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>
6681       </div>
6682       <div class="date">
6683          7th December 2008
6684       </div>
6685       <div class="body">
6686         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
6687 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
6688 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
6689 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
6690 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
6691 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
6692 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
6693 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
6694
6695 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
6696 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
6697 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
6698 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
6699 of these cards.</p>
6700
6701       </div>
6702       <div class="tags">
6703
6704
6705         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>.
6706
6707
6708       </div>
6709     </div>
6710     <div class="padding"></div>
6711
6712     <div class="entry">
6713       <div class="title">
6714         <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>
6715       </div>
6716       <div class="date">
6717         25th November 2008
6718       </div>
6719       <div class="body">
6720         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
6721 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
6722 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
6723 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
6724 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
6725 notes are available on
6726 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
6727 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
6728 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
6729 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
6730 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
6731 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
6732 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
6733 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
6734 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
6735
6736 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
6737 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
6738
6739       </div>
6740       <div class="tags">
6741
6742
6743         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>.
6744
6745
6746       </div>
6747     </div>
6748     <div class="padding"></div>
6749
6750     <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>
6751     <div id="sidebar">
6752
6753
6754
6755 <h2>Archive</h2>
6756 <ul>
6757
6758 <li>2013
6759 <ul>
6760
6761 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
6762
6763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
6764
6765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
6766
6767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
6768
6769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6770
6771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
6772
6773 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6774
6775 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6776
6777 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
6778
6779 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (6)</a></li>
6780
6781 </ul></li>
6782
6783 <li>2012
6784 <ul>
6785
6786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
6787
6788 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
6789
6790 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
6791
6792 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
6793
6794 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
6795
6796 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
6797
6798 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
6799
6800 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6801
6802 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
6803
6804 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
6805
6806 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
6807
6808 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6809
6810 </ul></li>
6811
6812 <li>2011
6813 <ul>
6814
6815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
6816
6817 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
6818
6819 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
6820
6821 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
6822
6823 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
6824
6825 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
6826
6827 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6828
6829 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6830
6831 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
6832
6833 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6834
6835 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6836
6837 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
6838
6839 </ul></li>
6840
6841 <li>2010
6842 <ul>
6843
6844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
6845
6846 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
6847
6848 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
6849
6850 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
6851
6852 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6853
6854 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
6855
6856 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
6857
6858 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
6859
6860 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
6861
6862 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
6863
6864 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
6865
6866 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
6867
6868 </ul></li>
6869
6870 <li>2009
6871 <ul>
6872
6873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
6874
6875 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
6876
6877 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
6878
6879 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
6880
6881 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6882
6883 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
6884
6885 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
6886
6887 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6888
6889 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
6890
6891 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6892
6893 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6894
6895 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
6896
6897 </ul></li>
6898
6899 <li>2008
6900 <ul>
6901
6902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
6903
6904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6905
6906 </ul></li>
6907
6908 </ul>
6909
6910
6911
6912 <h2>Tags</h2>
6913 <ul>
6914
6915  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
6916
6917  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
6918
6919  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
6920
6921  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
6922
6923  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
6924
6925  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
6926
6927  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
6928
6929  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (87)</a></li>
6930
6931  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
6932
6933  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
6934
6935  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
6936
6937  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
6938
6939  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (222)</a></li>
6940
6941  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
6942
6943  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
6944
6945  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
6946
6947  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (4)</a></li>
6948
6949  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
6950
6951  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
6952
6953  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
6954
6955  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
6956
6957  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
6958
6959  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
6960
6961  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
6962
6963  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (2)</a></li>
6964
6965  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
6966
6967  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (236)</a></li>
6968
6969  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (156)</a></li>
6970
6971  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
6972
6973  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
6974
6975  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
6976
6977  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
6978
6979  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
6980
6981  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
6982
6983  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
6984
6985  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (8)</a></li>
6986
6987  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
6988
6989  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
6990
6991  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
6992
6993  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (32)</a></li>
6994
6995  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
6996
6997  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
6998
6999  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
7000
7001  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
7002
7003  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
7004
7005  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (20)</a></li>
7006
7007  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
7008
7009  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
7010
7011  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
7012
7013  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
7014
7015  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
7016
7017 </ul>
7018
7019
7020     </div>
7021     <p style="text-align: right">
7022  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
7023 </p>
7024
7025   </body>
7026 </html>