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6 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: entries from January
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15 <a href=
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</a>
22 <h3>Entries from January
2013.
</h3>
26 <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>
32 <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
33 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
34 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
35 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
36 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
37 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
38 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
39 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
40 not a durable solution.
42 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
43 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p>
47 <li>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
49 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li>
50 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li>
51 <li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li>
52 <li>Internal WIFI network card.
</li>
53 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li>
54 <li>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li>
55 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li>
56 <li>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
58 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
60 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
65 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
66 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
67 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
68 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
69 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
70 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
71 Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
74 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
75 external keyboard? I'll have to check the
76 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site
</a> for
77 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
78 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
79 Pre-loaded site
</a>.
</p>
85 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>.
90 <div class=
"padding"></div>
94 <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>
100 <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
101 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
102 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
103 done by Ubuntu
</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
104 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
105 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
106 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p>
112 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
117 version = pkg.candidate
119 version = pkg.installed
122 record = version.record
123 if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
125 mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
127 t = t.rstrip().strip()
129 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
131 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
132 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
133 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
134 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
135 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
139 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p>
142 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
143 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
145 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
146 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
151 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
152 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
153 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
154 anyone working on adding it?
</p>
156 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong>: The Debian BTS
157 request for icweasel support for this feature is
158 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#
484010</a> from
2008 (and
159 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#
698426</a> from today). Lack
160 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
161 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p>
167 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>.
172 <div class=
"padding"></div>
176 <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>
182 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
183 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
184 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
185 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
186 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
187 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
188 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
189 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
191 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
192 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
193 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
195 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
196 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
197 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
198 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
199 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
201 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
205 ----- -----------------------
228 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
232 ----- -----------------------
255 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
259 ----- -----------------------
282 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
283 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
284 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
287 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
288 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
294 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>.
299 <div class=
"padding"></div>
303 <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>
309 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
310 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
311 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
312 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
313 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
314 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
315 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
316 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
317 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
320 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
321 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
322 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
326 Package: package-name
327 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
330 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
331 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
333 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
334 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
338 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
341 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
342 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
346 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
349 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
350 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
353 Package: colorhug-client
354 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
357 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
358 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
359 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
361 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
362 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
363 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
364 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
365 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
366 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
367 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
370 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
371 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
372 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
373 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
375 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
376 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
377 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
378 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
380 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
381 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
384 % ./hw-support-lookup
385 <br>yubikey-personalization
389 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
390 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
393 % ./hw-support-lookup
398 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
399 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
400 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
402 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
403 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
404 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
405 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
406 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
407 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
408 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
411 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
412 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
413 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
414 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
420 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>.
425 <div class=
"padding"></div>
429 <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>
435 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
436 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
437 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
438 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
440 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
441 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
443 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
445 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
446 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
447 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
448 <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> >,
449 <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> > and
450 <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> >.
452 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
453 this shell script:
</p>
456 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
459 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
463 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
464 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
465 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
469 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
471 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
472 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
475 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
478 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
483 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
484 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
490 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
491 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
492 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
493 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
495 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
498 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
500 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
501 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
504 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
507 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
510 v
1D6B (device vendor)
511 p
0001 (device product)
514 dsc
00 (device subclass)
515 dp
00 (device protocol)
516 ic
09 (interface class)
517 isc
00 (interface subclass)
518 ip
00 (interface protocol)
521 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
522 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
523 these alias entries show up:
</p>
526 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
527 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
528 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
529 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
532 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
533 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
534 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
536 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
538 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
539 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
542 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
545 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
547 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
549 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
550 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
551 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
554 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
557 <p>The values present are
</p>
560 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
561 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
562 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
563 svn IBM (system vendor)
564 pn
2371H4G (product name)
565 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
566 rvn IBM (board vendor)
567 rn
2371H4G (board name)
568 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
569 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
571 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
574 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
575 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
579 4 Low Profile Desktop
592 17 Main Server Chassis
595 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
596 21 Peripheral Chassis
598 23 Rack Mount Chassis
607 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
608 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
609 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
611 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
613 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
617 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
620 <p>The values present are
</p>
629 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
630 the valid values are.
</p>
632 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
634 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
635 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
636 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
637 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
638 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
639 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
640 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
642 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
644 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
645 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
648 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
650 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
654 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
655 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
659 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
661 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
663 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
664 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
665 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
666 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
667 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
668 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
669 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
670 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
674 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
675 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
676 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
677 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
679 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
680 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
681 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
687 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>.
692 <div class=
"padding"></div>
696 <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>
702 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
703 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
704 Launcher and updated the Debian package
705 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
706 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
707 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
708 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
709 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
710 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
711 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
712 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
713 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
714 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
715 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
716 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
717 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
718 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
719 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
725 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>.
730 <div class="padding
"></div>
734 <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>
740 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
741 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
742 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
743 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
744 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
745 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
746 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
747 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
748 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
749 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
750 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
752 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
753 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
754 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
759 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
760 starting when a user log in.</li>
762 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
763 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
765 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
766 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
769 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
770 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
774 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
775 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
776 discover database to find packages and
777 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
780 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
781 draft package is now checked into
782 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
783 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
784 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
785 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
786 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
787 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
788 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
789 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
790 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
791 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
792 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
793 because of the freeze).</p>
795 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
796 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
799 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
801 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
802 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
803 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
805 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
806 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
807 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
808 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
809 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
810 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
811 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
813 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
814 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
815 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
816 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
817 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
818 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
819 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
820 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
821 not be installed?
</p>
823 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
824 please send me an email. :)
</p>
830 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>.
835 <div class=
"padding"></div>
839 <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>
845 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
846 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
847 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
848 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
849 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
850 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
851 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
852 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
853 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
854 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
856 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
857 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
858 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
864 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>.
869 <div class=
"padding"></div>
873 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenker_for_2013_01_01.html">Lenker for
2013-
01-
01</a>
879 <p>Her er noen lenker til tekster jeg har satt pris på å lese den
885 <a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article262047.ece">Myter og
886 FUD om fri programvare
</a> av min venn Christer Gundersen som
887 kommenterer noen av de påstandene som er spredt via Computerworld
888 Norge de siste månedene.
</li>
890 <li>BankID er et opplegg der utsteder (dvs. banken eller dens
891 leverandør) sitter på alt som trengs for å bruke BankID, men har
892 lovet å ikke bruke den unntatt på oppdrag fra deg. Det er greit nok
893 for banktjenester, der banken allerede har full kontroll over
894 resultatet, men problematisk når det gjelder tilgang til
895 helseopplysninger og avtaleinngåelse med andre enn banken. Jeg
896 håper protestene brer om seg.
900 <li>2012-
12-
11 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/BankID-blottlegger-helseopplysninger-7067148.html">BankID
901 blottlegger helseopplysninger
</a></li>
903 <li>2012-
12-
07 <a href=
"http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.9695027">-
904 Helseopplysningene ikke sikre med Bank-ID
</a></li>
907 <a href=
"https://www.bankid.no/Presse-og-nyheter/Nyhetsarkiv/2012/Papeker-alvorlige-men-kjente-utfordringer/">PÃ¥peker
908 alvorlige, men kjente utfordringer
</a> er den offisielle
909 holdningen til de som lager BankID.
</li>
912 <a href=
"http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/3419-ntnu-researcher-warns-against-security-of-bank-id-password">NTNU
913 Researcher Warns against Security of Bank ID Password
</a>
917 <li>2012-
12-
11 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Norske-elever-er-darligst-i-Europa-pa-algebra-7066752.html">Norske elever er dårligst i Europa på algebra
</a>
920 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/Realfagsdodaren-7067173.html">Realfagsdødaren
</a>
923 <a href=
"http://www.bt.no/nyheter/innenriks/112/--Forventningene-er-for-hoye-2816450.html">-
924 Noen må bli skuffet
</a> - Politiet i Bergen forteller hvor lavt de
925 prioriterer hverdagskriminalitet.
</li>
928 <a href=
"http://e24.no/jobb/kripos-ansatt-doemt-for-snoking-for-venn/20208585">
929 Kripos-ansatt dømt for snoking for venn
</A> - viser hvor svak
930 reaksjonen blir når politiet misbruker innsamlet informasjon. En
931 forvarsel på konsekvensene av nasjonal brev- og besøkskontroll -
932 ofte kalt Datalagringsdirektivet.
</li>
935 <a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/2012/12/14/kultur/debatt/kronikk/jul/ensomhet/24838541/">Ã…
936 smøre en forskjell
</a> - om ensomhet og jul.
</li>
939 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/n-krise-av-gangen_-takk-7072452.html">Én
940 krise av gangen, takk!
</a>
944 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/NAV-Et-mangehodet-monster--7072165.html">NAV:
945 Et mangehodet monster
</a></li>
948 <a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/01/12/kultur/debatt/kronikk/personvern/15027203/">Pasienter
949 uten vern
</a> - forteller litt om hvordan Norsk Pasientregister og
950 andre helseregister raderer bort pasienters privatsfære.
</li>
954 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/debatt/Hvorfor-er-barnefamilier-fattige-7073951.html">Hvorfor
955 er barnefamilier fattige?
</a></li>
958 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/spaltister/Den-skjulte-minoriteten--konservative-kristne-i-Norge-7075518.html">Den
959 skjulte minoriteten – konservative kristne i Norge
</a> - kronikk av
960 Bjørn Stærk fra aftenposten
</li>
963 <a href=
"http://deltemeninger.no/-/bulletin/show/303429_folkebiblioteket-2-0?ref=checkpoint">Folkebiblioteket
964 2.0</a> - Min venn Sturle om opphavsrett og Internett, i debatt med
969 <p>Og et godt nytt år til dere alle!
</p>
975 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk
</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>.
980 <div class=
"padding"></div>
982 <p style=
"text-align: right;"><a href=
"01.rss"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt=
"RSS Feed" width=
"36" height=
"14" /></a></p>
993 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (
9)
</a></li>
1000 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (
7)
</a></li>
1002 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (
10)
</a></li>
1004 <li><a href=
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17)
</a></li>
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12)
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9)
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1018 <li><a href=
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1072 <li><a href=
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</a></li>
1074 <li><a href=
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7)
</a></li>
1076 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (
9)
</a></li>
1078 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (
13)
</a></li>
1080 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (
12)
</a></li>
1087 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (
8)
</a></li>
1089 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (
8)
</a></li>
1091 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (
12)
</a></li>
1093 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (
10)
</a></li>
1095 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
1097 <li><a href=
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1099 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
1101 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
1103 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (
1)
</a></li>
1105 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
1107 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
1109 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
1116 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (
5)
</a></li>
1118 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
1129 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (
13)
</a></li>
1131 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (
1)
</a></li>
1133 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (
1)
</a></li>
1135 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (
4)
</a></li>
1137 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (
5)
</a></li>
1139 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (
12)
</a></li>
1141 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (
2)
</a></li>
1143 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (
67)
</a></li>
1145 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (
118)
</a></li>
1147 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (
9)
</a></li>
1149 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (
7)
</a></li>
1151 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
1153 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (
173)
</a></li>
1155 <li><a href=
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21)
</a></li>
1157 <li><a href=
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12)
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1159 <li><a href=
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10)
</a></li>
1161 <li><a href=
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9)
</a></li>
1163 <li><a href=
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32)
</a></li>
1165 <li><a href=
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17)
</a></li>
1167 <li><a href=
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8)
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1169 <li><a href=
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6)
</a></li>
1171 <li><a href=
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1)
</a></li>
1173 <li><a href=
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25)
</a></li>
1175 <li><a href=
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219)
</a></li>
1177 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
148)
</a></li>
1179 <li><a href=
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6)
</a></li>
1181 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (
2)
</a></li>
1183 <li><a href=
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41)
</a></li>
1185 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
61)
</a></li>
1187 <li><a href=
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1)
</a></li>
1189 <li><a href=
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11)
</a></li>
1191 <li><a href=
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2)
</a></li>
1193 <li><a href=
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6)
</a></li>
1195 <li><a href=
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1)
</a></li>
1197 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
1199 <li><a href=
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2)
</a></li>
1201 <li><a href=
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28)
</a></li>
1203 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
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4)
</a></li>
1207 <li><a href=
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39)
</a></li>
1209 <li><a href=
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3)
</a></li>
1211 <li><a href=
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5)
</a></li>
1213 <li><a href=
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12)
</a></li>
1215 <li><a href=
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1)
</a></li>
1217 <li><a href=
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7)
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1219 <li><a href=
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35)
</a></li>
1221 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
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26)
</a></li>
1229 <p style=
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1230 Created by
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