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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_got_everything_you_need_to_program_Micro_bit.html">Debian now got everything you need to program Micro:bit</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         22nd January 2019
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I am amazed and very pleased to discover that since a few days ago,
  32 everything you need to program the <a href="https://microbit.org/">BBC
  33 micro:bit</a> is available from the Debian archive.  All this is
  34 thanks to the hard work of Nick Morrott and the Debian python
  35 packaging team.  The micro:bit project recommend the mu-editor to
  36 program the microcomputer, as this editor will take care of all the
  37 machinery required to injekt/flash micropython alongside the program
  38 into the micro:bit, as long as the pieces are available.</p>
  39
  40 <p>There are three main pieces involved.  The first to enter Debian
  41 was
  42 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/python-uflash">python-uflash</a>,
  43 which was accepted into the archive 2019-01-12.  The next one was
  44 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mu-editor">mu-editor</a>, which
  45 showed up 2019-01-13.  The final and hardest part to to into the
  46 archive was
  47 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firmware-microbit-micropython">firmware-microbit-micropython</a>,
  48 which needed to get its build system and dependencies into Debian
  49 before it was accepted 2019-01-20.  The last one is already in Debian
  50 Unstable and should enter Debian Testing / Buster in three days.  This
  51 all allow any user of the micro:bit to get going by simply running
  52 'apt install mu-editor' when using Testing or Unstable, and once
  53 Buster is released as stable, all the users of Debian stable will be
  54 catered for.</p>
  55
  56 <p>As a minor final touch, I added rules to
  57 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">the isenkram
  58 package</a> for recognizing micro:bit and recommend the mu-editor
  59 package.  This make sure any user of the isenkram desktop daemon will
  60 get a popup suggesting to install mu-editor then the USB cable from
  61 the micro:bit is inserted for the first time.</p>
  62
  63 <p>This should make it easier to have fun.</p>
  64
  65 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  66 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  67 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  68
  69       </div>
  70       <div class="tags">
  71
  72
  73         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>.
  74
  75
  76       </div>
  77     </div>
  78     <div class="padding"></div>
  79
  80     <div class="entry">
  81       <div class="title">
  82         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Learn_to_program_with_Minetest_on_Debian.html">Learn to program with Minetest on Debian</a>
  83       </div>
  84       <div class="date">
  85         15th December 2018
  86       </div>
  87       <div class="body">
  88         <p>A fun way to learn how to program
  89 <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> is to follow the
  90 instructions in the book
  91 "<a href="https://nostarch.com/programwithminecraft">Learn to program
  92 with Minecraft</a>", which introduces programming in Python to people
  93 who like to play with Minecraft.  The book uses a Python library to
  94 talk to a TCP/IP socket with an API accepting build instructions and
  95 providing information about the current players in a Minecraft world.
  96 The TCP/IP API was first created for the Minecraft implementation for
  97 Raspberry Pi, and has since been ported to some server versions of
  98 Minecraft.  The book contain recipes for those using Windows, MacOSX
  99 and Raspian.  But a little known fact is that you can follow the same
 100 recipes using the free software construction game
 101 <a href="https://minetest.net/">Minetest</a>.</p>
 102
 103 <p>There is <a href="https://github.com/sprintingkiwi/pycraft_mod">a
 104 Minetest module implementing the same API</a>, making it possible to
 105 use the Python programs coded to talk to Minecraft with Minetest too.
 106 I
 107 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/minetest-mod-pycraft_0.20%2Bgit20180331.0376a0a%2Bdfsg-1.html">uploaded
 108 this module</a> to Debian two weeks ago, and as soon as it clears the
 109 FTP masters NEW queue, learning to program Python with Minetest on
 110 Debian will be a simple 'apt install' away.  The Debian package is
 111 maintained as part of the Debian Games team, and
 112 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/unfinished/minetest-mod-pycraft">the
 113 packaging rules</a> are currently located under 'unfinished' on
 114 Salsa.</p>
 115
 116 <p>You will most likely need to install several of the Minetest
 117 modules in Debian for the examples included with the library to work
 118 well, as there are several blocks used by the example scripts that are
 119 provided via modules in Minetest.  Without the required blocks, a
 120 simple stone block is used instead.  My initial testing with a analog
 121 clock did not get gold arms as instructed in the python library, but
 122 instead used stone arms.</p>
 123
 124 <p>I tried to find a way to add the API to the desktop version of
 125 Minecraft, but were unable to find any working recipes.  The
 126 <a href="https://www.epiphanydigest.com/tag/minecraft-python-api/">recipes</a>
 127 I <a href="https://github.com/kbsriram/mcpiapi">found</a> are only
 128 working with a standalone Minecraft server setup.  Are there any
 129 options to use with the normal desktop version?</p>
 130
 131 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 132 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 133 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 134
 135       </div>
 136       <div class="tags">
 137
 138
 139         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>.
 140
 141
 142       </div>
 143     </div>
 144     <div class="padding"></div>
 145
 146     <div class="entry">
 147       <div class="title">
 148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_an_official_MIME_type_for_patches_.html">Time for an official MIME type for patches?</a>
 149       </div>
 150       <div class="date">
 151          1st November 2018
 152       </div>
 153       <div class="body">
 154         <p>As part of my involvement in
 155 <a href="https://gitlab.com/OsloMet-ABI/nikita-noark5-core">the Nikita
 156 archive API project</a>, I've been importing a fairly large lump of
 157 emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would
 158 go.  I picked a subset of <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">my
 159 notmuch email database</a>, all public emails sent to me via
 160 @lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import.
 161 In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in
 162 these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed
 163 that one of the most common attachment formats do not have
 164 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">an
 165 official MIME type</a> registered with IANA/IETF.  The output from
 166 diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats
 167 included in these emails.  At the moment people seem to use either
 168 text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered.  It
 169 would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used
 170 everywhere.</p>
 171
 172 <p>To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought
 173 up the topic on
 174 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/media-types">the
 175 media-types mailing list</a>.  If you are interested in discussion
 176 which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in
 177 making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like
 178 to join the discussion?</p>
 179
 180 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 181 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 182 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 183
 184       </div>
 185       <div class="tags">
 186
 187
 188         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/standard">standard</a>.
 189
 190
 191       </div>
 192     </div>
 193     <div class="padding"></div>
 194
 195     <div class="entry">
 196       <div class="title">
 197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Google_Drive_sync_using_grive_in_Debian.html">Automatic Google Drive sync using grive in Debian</a>
 198       </div>
 199       <div class="date">
 200          4th October 2018
 201       </div>
 202       <div class="body">
 203         <p>A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian.  To try to
 204 rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive.
 205 I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this
 206 automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from
 207 <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/">the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA</a> to do the
 208 task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to
 209 run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync.
 210 Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.</p>
 211
 212 <p>I first created <tt>~/googledrive</tt>, entered the directory and
 213 ran '<tt>grive -a</tt>' to authenticate the machine/user.  Next, I
 214 created a autostart hook in <tt>~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop</tt>
 215 to start the sync when the user log in:</p>
 216
 217 <p><blockquote><pre>
 218 [Desktop Entry]
 219 Name=Google drive autosync
 220 Type=Application
 221 Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
 222 </pre></blockquote></p>
 223
 224 <p>Finally, I wrote the <tt>~/bin/grive-sync</tt> script to sync
 225 ~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.</p>
 226
 227 <p><blockquote><pre>
 228 #!/bin/sh
 229 set -e
 230 cd ~/
 231 cleanup() {
 232     if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
 233         kill $syncpid
 234     fi
 235 }
 236 trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
 237 /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
 238 syncpdi=$!
 239 while true; do
 240     if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
 241         echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
 242         exit 1
 243     fi
 244     if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
 245         /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
 246     fi
 247     sleep 300
 248 done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
 249 </pre></blockquote></p>
 250
 251 <p>Feel free to use the setup if you want.  It can be assumed to be
 252 GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I
 253 doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.</p>
 254
 255 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 256 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 257 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 258
 259       </div>
 260       <div class="tags">
 261
 262
 263         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>.
 264
 265
 266       </div>
 267     </div>
 268     <div class="padding"></div>
 269
 270     <div class="entry">
 271       <div class="title">
 272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html">Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</a>
 273       </div>
 274       <div class="date">
 275          2nd September 2018
 276       </div>
 277       <div class="body">
 278         <p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
 279 tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
 280 insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
 281 web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
 282 to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
 283 available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
 284 have check out a nice cover band.</p>
 285
 286 <p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 287   --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
 288   "params": {"item": { "file":
 289   "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
 290   http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
 291
 292 <p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
 293 first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
 294 and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
 295 Chromecast. :)</p>
 296
 297 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 298 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 299 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 300
 301       </div>
 302       <div class="tags">
 303
 304
 305         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/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 306
 307
 308       </div>
 309     </div>
 310     <div class="padding"></div>
 311
 312     <div class="entry">
 313       <div class="title">
 314         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sharing_images_with_friends_and_family_using_RSS_and_EXIF_XMP_metadata.html">Sharing images with friends and family using RSS and EXIF/XMP metadata</a>
 315       </div>
 316       <div class="date">
 317         31st July 2018
 318       </div>
 319       <div class="body">
 320         <p>For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images
 321 with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to
 322 place images from my personal life under the control of strangers
 323 working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox.  The last few days I
 324 have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to
 325 share it with you.  I would like to publish images on a server under
 326 my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some
 327 free and open standard to the images I published.  As my primary
 328 language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using
 329 UTF-8.  Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable
 330 of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the
 331 &lt;enclosure&gt; RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier
 332 of such frames.  In the end I gave up that approach.</p>
 333
 334 <p>Some months ago, I discovered that
 335 <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">XScreensaver</a> is able to
 336 read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on
 337 my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from
 338 NASA.  This proved to work well.  More recently I discovered that
 339 <a href="https://kodi.tv">Kodi</a> (both using
 340 <a href="https://www.openelec.tv/">OpenELEC</a> and
 341 <a href="https://libreelec.tv">LibreELEC</a>) provide the
 342 <a href="https://github.com/grinsted/script.screensaver.feedreader">Feedreader</a>
 343 screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news.  For
 344 fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up
 345 a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a
 346 screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.</p>
 347
 348 <p>Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate
 349 a RSS feed for the Kodi instance.  I adjusted my <a
 350 href="https://freedombox.org/">Freedombox</a> instance, created
 351 /var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract
 352 title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the
 353 RSS file.  I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the
 354 libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP
 355 tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not.  The relevant EXIF
 356 tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives.  XMP
 357 seem to have the support I need.</p>
 358
 359 <p>I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to
 360 use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software
 361 photo managing software.  I ended up using the tags set using this
 362 exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:</p>
 363
 364 <blockquote><pre>
 365 exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
 366   -description='The RSS image description.' \
 367   -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
 368 </pre></blockquote>
 369
 370 <p>I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were
 371 invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject".  I
 372 use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be
 373 shared with my family.  Images with this keyword set are located and
 374 copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.</p>
 375
 376 <p>Are there better ways to do this?  Get in touch if you have better
 377 suggestions.</p>
 378
 379 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 380 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 381 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 382
 383       </div>
 384       <div class="tags">
 385
 386
 387         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>.
 388
 389
 390       </div>
 391     </div>
 392     <div class="padding"></div>
 393
 394     <div class="entry">
 395       <div class="title">
 396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</a>
 397       </div>
 398       <div class="date">
 399         12th July 2018
 400       </div>
 401       <div class="body">
 402         <p>Last night, I wrote
 403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
 404 recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
 405 During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
 406 suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
 407 approach requiring no setup at all.  It is a single script that take
 408 care of it all.</p>
 409
 410 <p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
 411 desktop and stream it to Kodi.  This fixed the video quality issue I
 412 saw initially.  It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
 413 Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
 414 <a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
 415 Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
 416 GStreamer.  Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial.  Copy
 417 the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
 418 server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
 419 up on the Kodi screen.  Note, it depend on multicast on the local
 420 network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
 421 script must be modified.  Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
 422 I only care about the picture part.</p>
 423
 424 <blockquote><pre>
 425 #!/bin/sh
 426 #
 427 # Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi.  See
 428 # http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
 429 # for backgorund information.
 430
 431 # Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
 432 # killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
 433 # kodi server).  Do the same when interrupting this script.
 434 kodicmd() {
 435     host="$1"
 436     cmd="$2"
 437     params="$3"
 438     curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 439          --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
 440          "http://$host/jsonrpc"
 441 }
 442 cleanup() {
 443     if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
 444         # Stop the playing when we end
 445         playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
 446                             jq .result[].playerid)
 447         kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
 448     fi
 449     if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
 450         kill "$gstpid"
 451     fi
 452 }
 453 trap cleanup EXIT INT
 454
 455 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
 456     kodihost=$1
 457     shift
 458 else
 459     kodihost=kodi.local
 460 fi
 461
 462 mcast=239.255.0.1
 463 mcastport=1234
 464 mcastttl=1
 465
 466 pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
 467   cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
 468 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
 469   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
 470   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
 471   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
 472   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
 473   udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
 474   pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
 475   > /dev/null 2>&1 &
 476 gstpid=$!
 477
 478 # Give stream a second to get going
 479 sleep 1
 480
 481 # Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
 482 kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
 483         "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
 484
 485 # wait for gst to end
 486 wait "$gstpid"
 487 </pre></blockquote>
 488
 489 <p>I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.</p>
 490
 491 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 492 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 493 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 494
 495       </div>
 496       <div class="tags">
 497
 498
 499         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/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 500
 501
 502       </div>
 503     </div>
 504     <div class="padding"></div>
 505
 506     <div class="entry">
 507       <div class="title">
 508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</a>
 509       </div>
 510       <div class="date">
 511         12th July 2018
 512       </div>
 513       <div class="body">
 514         <p>PS: See
 515 <ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
 516 followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
 517
 518 <p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
 519 my projector connected to Kodi.  I sadly had to admit that I had no
 520 idea, as it was a task I never had tried.  Since then, I have been
 521 looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
 522 install on either side.  Today I found a way that seem to kind of
 523 work.  Not great, but it is a start.</p>
 524
 525 <p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
 526 <a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
 527 DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
 528 local storage enough to store the stream locally.  This is not going
 529 to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
 530 impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
 531
 532 <p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
 533 video stream that Kodi could play.  Preferably using
 534 broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
 535 side when starting such stream.  Unfortunately, the only recipe I
 536 could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
 537 seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
 538
 539 <p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working!  Unfortunately I
 540 have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
 541 sending command and the file on the Kodi server.  But it is showing my
 542 desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
 543 the programs I work on.</p>
 544
 545 <p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
 546 rtp and rtsp recipes from
 547 <a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
 548 VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
 549 this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
 550
 551 <blockquote><pre>
 552 vlc screen:// --sout \
 553   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
 554 </pre></blockquote>
 555
 556 <p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
 557 same IP address:</p>
 558
 559 <blockquote><pre>
 560 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
 561   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
 562 </pre></blockquote>
 563
 564 <p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address.  As far
 565 as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work.  In other
 566 words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
 567 to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
 568 recipe.  To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
 569 file while the VLC stream is running.  The desktop then show up in my
 570 big screen. :)</p>
 571
 572 <p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
 573 the audio quality is really bad.  No idea if the problem is package
 574 loss or bad parameters for the transcode.  I do not know VLC nor Kodi
 575 enough to tell.</p>
 576
 577 <p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
 578 succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The "screen:"
 579 input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
 580 package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
 581 message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'.  Check the log
 582 for details."  He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
 583 of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
 584 It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
 585 window in the desktop view.  In sum, this give us this command line on
 586 the source end
 587
 588 <blockquote><pre>
 589 cvlc screen:// --sout \
 590   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
 591 </pre></blockquote>
 592
 593 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
 594
 595 <blockquote><pre>
 596 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
 597   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
 598 </pre></blockquote>
 599
 600 <p>Still bad image quality, though.  But I did discover that streaming
 601 a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
 602 audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
 603 parts, not the rtsp part.  I've tried to change the vb and ab
 604 parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
 605 difference.</p>
 606
 607 <p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
 608 gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great!  He also
 609 provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
 610 its source.  By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
 611 with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
 612 multicast address on port 1234:
 613
 614 <blockquote><pre>
 615 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
 616   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
 617   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
 618   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
 619   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
 620   udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
 621   pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
 622     grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' |  cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
 623   audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
 624 </pre></blockquote>
 625
 626 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
 627
 628 <blockquote><pre>
 629 echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
 630   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
 631 </pre></blockquote>
 632
 633 <p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source.  It might not
 634 pick the one you need.  This approach will of course lead to trouble
 635 if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
 636 Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
 637 local network.  If the value is increased, your screen will be
 638 broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
 639 multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
 640
 641 <p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
 642 could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
 643 The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
 644 seem to be doing a better job.</p>
 645
 646 <blockquote><pre>
 647 cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
 648 </pre></blockquote>
 649
 650 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 651 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 652 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 653
 654       </div>
 655       <div class="tags">
 656
 657
 658         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/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 659
 660
 661       </div>
 662     </div>
 663     <div class="padding"></div>
 664
 665     <div class="entry">
 666       <div class="title">
 667         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in 2018?</a>
 668       </div>
 669       <div class="date">
 670          9th July 2018
 671       </div>
 672       <div class="body">
 673         <p>Five years ago,
 674 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">I
 675 measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was</a>, by
 676 analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive.  Since
 677 then, the DEP-11 AppStream system has been put into production, making
 678 the task a lot easier.  This made me want to repeat the measurement,
 679 to see how much things changed.  Here are the new numbers, for
 680 unstable only this time:
 681
 682 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 683
 684 <pre>
 685   count MIME type
 686   ----- -----------------------
 687      56 image/jpeg
 688      55 image/png
 689      49 image/tiff
 690      48 image/gif
 691      39 image/bmp
 692      38 text/plain
 693      37 audio/mpeg
 694      34 application/ogg
 695      33 audio/x-flac
 696      32 audio/x-mp3
 697      30 audio/x-wav
 698      30 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
 699      29 image/x-portable-pixmap
 700      27 inode/directory
 701      27 image/x-portable-bitmap
 702      27 audio/x-mpeg
 703      26 application/x-ogg
 704      25 audio/x-mpegurl
 705      25 audio/ogg
 706      24 text/html
 707 </pre>
 708
 709 <p>The list was created like this using a sid chroot: "cat
 710 /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz| zcat | awk '/^
 711 - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20"</p>
 712
 713 <p>It is interesting to see how image formats have passed text/plain
 714 as the most announced supported MIME type.  These days, thanks to the
 715 AppStream system, if you run into a file format you do not know, and
 716 want to figure out which packages support the format, you can find the
 717 MIME type of the file using "file --mime &lt;filename&gt;", and then
 718 look up all packages announcing support for this format in their
 719 AppStream metadata (XML or .desktop file) using "appstreamcli
 720 what-provides mimetype &lt;mime-type&gt;.  For example if you, like
 721 me, want to know which packages support inode/directory, you can get a
 722 list like this:</p>
 723
 724 <p><blockquote><pre>
 725 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype inode/directory | grep Package: | sort
 726 Package: anjuta
 727 Package: audacious
 728 Package: baobab
 729 Package: cervisia
 730 Package: chirp
 731 Package: dolphin
 732 Package: doublecmd-common
 733 Package: easytag
 734 Package: enlightenment
 735 Package: ephoto
 736 Package: filelight
 737 Package: gwenview
 738 Package: k4dirstat
 739 Package: kaffeine
 740 Package: kdesvn
 741 Package: kid3
 742 Package: kid3-qt
 743 Package: nautilus
 744 Package: nemo
 745 Package: pcmanfm
 746 Package: pcmanfm-qt
 747 Package: qweborf
 748 Package: ranger
 749 Package: sirikali
 750 Package: spacefm
 751 Package: spacefm
 752 Package: vifm
 753 %
 754 </pre></blockquote></p>
 755
 756 <p>Using the same method, I can quickly discover that the Sketchup file
 757 format is not yet supported by any package in Debian:</p>
 758
 759 <p><blockquote><pre>
 760 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/vnd.sketchup.skp
 761 Could not find component providing 'mimetype::application/vnd.sketchup.skp'.
 762 %
 763 </pre></blockquote></p>
 764
 765 <p>Yesterday I used it to figure out which packages support the STL 3D
 766 format:</p>
 767
 768 <p><blockquote><pre>
 769 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/sla|grep Package
 770 Package: cura
 771 Package: meshlab
 772 Package: printrun
 773 %
 774 </pre></blockquote></p>
 775
 776 <p>PS: A new version of Cura was uploaded to Debian yesterday.</p>
 777
 778 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 779 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 780 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 781
 782       </div>
 783       <div class="tags">
 784
 785
 786         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>.
 787
 788
 789       </div>
 790     </div>
 791     <div class="padding"></div>
 792
 793     <div class="entry">
 794       <div class="title">
 795         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_APT_upgrade_without_enough_free_space_on_the_disk___.html">Debian APT upgrade without enough free space on the disk...</a>
 796       </div>
 797       <div class="date">
 798          8th July 2018
 799       </div>
 800       <div class="body">
 801         <p>Quite regularly, I let my Debian Sid/Unstable chroot stay untouch
 802 for a while, and when I need to update it there is not enough free
 803 space on the disk for apt to do a normal 'apt upgrade'.  I normally
 804 would resolve the issue by doing 'apt install &lt;somepackages&gt;' to
 805 upgrade only some of the packages in one batch, until the amount of
 806 packages to download fall below the amount of free space available.
 807 Today, I had about 500 packages to upgrade, and after a while I got
 808 tired of trying to install chunks of packages manually.  I concluded
 809 that I did not have the spare hours required to complete the task, and
 810 decided to see if I could automate it.  I came up with this small
 811 script which I call 'apt-in-chunks':</p>
 812
 813 <p><blockquote><pre>
 814 #!/bin/sh
 815 #
 816 # Upgrade packages when the disk is too full to upgrade every
 817 # upgradable package in one lump.  Fetching packages to upgrade using
 818 # apt, and then installing using dpkg, to avoid changing the package
 819 # flag for manual/automatic.
 820
 821 set -e
 822
 823 ignore() {
 824     if [ "$1" ]; then
 825         grep -v "$1"
 826     else
 827         cat
 828     fi
 829 }
 830
 831 for p in $(apt list --upgradable | ignore "$@" |cut -d/ -f1 | grep -v '^Listing...'); do
 832     echo "Upgrading $p"
 833     apt clean
 834     apt install --download-only -y $p
 835     for f in /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do
 836         if [ -e "$f" ]; then
 837             dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
 838             break
 839         fi
 840     done
 841 done
 842 </pre></blockquote></p>
 843
 844 <p>The script will extract the list of packages to upgrade, try to
 845 download the packages needed to upgrade one package, install the
 846 downloaded packages using dpkg.  The idea is to upgrade packages
 847 without changing the APT mark for the package (ie the one recording of
 848 the package was manually requested or pulled in as a dependency).  To
 849 use it, simply run it as root from the command line.  If it fail, try
 850 'apt install -f' to clean up the mess and run the script again.  This
 851 might happen if the new packages conflict with one of the old
 852 packages.  dpkg is unable to remove, while apt can do this.</p>
 853
 854 <p>It take one option, a package to ignore in the list of packages to
 855 upgrade.  The option to ignore a package is there to be able to skip
 856 the packages that are simply too large to unpack.  Today this was
 857 'ghc', but I have run into other large packages causing similar
 858 problems earlier (like TeX).</p>
 859
 860 <p>Update 2018-07-08: Thanks to Paul Wise, I am aware of two
 861 alternative ways to handle this.  The "unattended-upgrades
 862 --minimal-upgrade-steps" option will try to calculate upgrade sets for
 863 each package to upgrade, and then upgrade them in order, smallest set
 864 first.  It might be a better option than my above mentioned script.
 865 Also, "aptutude upgrade" can upgrade single packages, thus avoiding
 866 the need for using "dpkg -i" in the script above.</p>
 867
 868 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 869 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 870 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 871
 872       </div>
 873       <div class="tags">
 874
 875
 876         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>.
 877
 878
 879       </div>
 880     </div>
 881     <div class="padding"></div>
 882
 883     <div class="entry">
 884       <div class="title">
 885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html">Version 3.1 of Cura, the 3D print slicer, is now in Debian</a>
 886       </div>
 887       <div class="date">
 888         13th February 2018
 889       </div>
 890       <div class="body">
 891         <p>A new version of the
 892 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
 893 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
 894 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
 895 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
 896 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
 897 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
 898 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
 899 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
 900 well.</p>
 901
 902 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
 903 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
 904 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
 905 in Debian.</p>
 906
 907 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 908 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 909 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 910
 911       </div>
 912       <div class="tags">
 913
 914
 915         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>.
 916
 917
 918       </div>
 919     </div>
 920     <div class="padding"></div>
 921
 922     <div class="entry">
 923       <div class="title">
 924         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html">Cura, the nice 3D print slicer, is now in Debian Unstable</a>
 925       </div>
 926       <div class="date">
 927         17th December 2017
 928       </div>
 929       <div class="body">
 930         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
 931 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
 932 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
 933 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
 934 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
 935 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
 936 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
 937 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
 938 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
 939 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
 940 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
 941 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
 942 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
 943
 944 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
 945 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
 946 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
 947 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
 948 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
 949
 950 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
 951 team, flocking together on the
 952 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
 953 mailing list and the
 954 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
 955 IRC channel.</p>
 956
 957 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
 958 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
 959 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
 960
 961       </div>
 962       <div class="tags">
 963
 964
 965         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>.
 966
 967
 968       </div>
 969     </div>
 970     <div class="padding"></div>
 971
 972     <div class="entry">
 973       <div class="title">
 974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Generating_3D_prints_in_Debian_using_Cura_and_Slic3r__prusa_.html">Generating 3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)</a>
 975       </div>
 976       <div class="date">
 977          9th October 2017
 978       </div>
 979       <div class="body">
 980         <p>At my nearby maker space,
 981 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
 982 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
 983 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
 984 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
 985 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
 986 as the software involved,
 987 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
 988 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
 989 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
 990 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
 991 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
 992 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
 993 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
 994
 995 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
 996 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
 997 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
 998 on
 999 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1000 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
1001
1002 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
1003 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
1004 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
1005 upstream version.</p>
1006
1007 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
1008 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
1009 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
1010 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
1011 Debian, check out
1012 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
1013 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
1014 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
1015
1016 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1017 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1018 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1019
1020       </div>
1021       <div class="tags">
1022
1023
1024         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>.
1025
1026
1027       </div>
1028     </div>
1029     <div class="padding"></div>
1030
1031     <div class="entry">
1032       <div class="title">
1033         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html">Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass</a>
1034       </div>
1035       <div class="date">
1036         29th September 2017
1037       </div>
1038       <div class="body">
1039         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
1040 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
1041 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
1042 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
1043 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
1044 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
1045 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
1046 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
1047 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
1048 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
1049 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
1050 listen.</p>
1051
1052 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
1053 visualizing this information up and running for
1054 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
1055 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
1056 library.  The solution is based on the
1057 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
1058 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
1059 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
1060 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
1061 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
1062 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
1063 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
1064 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
1065
1066 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
1067 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
1068 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
1069 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
1070 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
1071 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
1072 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
1073 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
1074
1075 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
1076 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
1077 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
1078 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
1079 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
1080 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
1081 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
1082 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
1083 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
1084 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
1085 mentioned in
1086 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
1087 issue for the topic</a>.
1088
1089 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
1090
1091       </div>
1092       <div class="tags">
1093
1094
1095         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1096
1097
1098       </div>
1099     </div>
1100     <div class="padding"></div>
1101
1102     <div class="entry">
1103       <div class="title">
1104         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you</a>
1105       </div>
1106       <div class="date">
1107         24th September 2017
1108       </div>
1109       <div class="body">
1110         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
1111 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
1112 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
1113 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
1114 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
1115 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
1116 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
1117 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
1118 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
1119
1120 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
1121 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
1122 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
1123 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
1124
1125 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
1126 clone of two python scripts:</p>
1127
1128 <ol>
1129
1130 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
1131   testing).</li>
1132
1133 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
1134   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
1135
1136 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
1137   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
1138
1139 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
1140
1141 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
1142   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
1143   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
1144
1145 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
1146   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
1147
1148 </ol>
1149
1150 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
1151 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
1152 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
1153 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
1154 very cheaply
1155 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
1156 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
1157 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
1158
1159 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
1160 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
1161 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
1162 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
1163 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
1164 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
1165 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
1166 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
1167
1168 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
1169 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
1170 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
1171 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
1172 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
1173 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
1174 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
1175 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
1176 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
1177 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
1178 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
1179 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
1180
1181       </div>
1182       <div class="tags">
1183
1184
1185         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1186
1187
1188       </div>
1189     </div>
1190     <div class="padding"></div>
1191
1192     <div class="entry">
1193       <div class="title">
1194         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher using Debian</a>
1195       </div>
1196       <div class="date">
1197          9th August 2017
1198       </div>
1199       <div class="body">
1200         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
1201 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
1202 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
1203 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
1204 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
1205 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
1206 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
1207
1208 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
1209 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
1210 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
1211 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
1212 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
1213 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
1214 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
1215 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
1216 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
1217 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
1218 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
1219 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
1220 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
1221
1222 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
1223 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
1224 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
1225 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
1226 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
1227 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
1228 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
1229 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
1230 collector for a few days now.</p>
1231
1232 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
1233
1234 <ol>
1235
1236 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
1237
1238 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
1239 <a href="http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/</a>,</li>
1240
1241 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
1242
1243 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
1244 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
1245 found a GSM station).</li>
1246
1247 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
1248
1249 </ol>
1250
1251 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
1252 running, I decided to package
1253 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
1254 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
1255 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
1256 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
1257 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
1258
1259 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
1260 commercial tools like
1261 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
1262 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
1263 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
1264 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
1265 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
1266 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
1267 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
1268 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
1269 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
1270 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
1271 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
1272 of government officials...</p>
1273
1274 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
1275 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
1276 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
1277 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
1278 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
1279 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
1280 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
1281 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
1282 one frequency?</p>
1283
1284       </div>
1285       <div class="tags">
1286
1287
1288         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1289
1290
1291       </div>
1292     </div>
1293     <div class="padding"></div>
1294
1295     <div class="entry">
1296       <div class="title">
1297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available</a>
1298       </div>
1299       <div class="date">
1300         25th July 2017
1301       </div>
1302       <div class="body">
1303         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
1304
1305 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
1306 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1307 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
1308 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
1309 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
1310 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
1311 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
1312 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
1313 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
1314 as a web page</a>.</p>
1315
1316 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
1317 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
1318 in
1319 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
1320 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
1321 and
1322 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
1323 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
1324 project.  I hope
1325 "<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
1326 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
1327
1328       </div>
1329       <div class="tags">
1330
1331
1332         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1333
1334
1335       </div>
1336     </div>
1337     <div class="padding"></div>
1338
1339     <div class="entry">
1340       <div class="title">
1341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
1342       </div>
1343       <div class="date">
1344          3rd June 2017
1345       </div>
1346       <div class="body">
1347         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
1348 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
1349 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
1350 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
1351 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
1352 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
1353 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
1354
1355 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
1356
1357 <blockquote>
1358 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
1359 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
1360 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
1361
1362 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
1363 på temaet:</p>
1364 <ol>
1365 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
1366 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
1367 </ol>
1368
1369 </blockquote>
1370
1371 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
1372
1373 <blockquote>
1374 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
1375 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
1376 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
1377
1378 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
1379 temaet:</p>
1380
1381 <ol>
1382 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
1383 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
1384 </ol>
1385
1386 </blockquote>
1387
1388 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
1389 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
1390 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
1391 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
1392 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
1393 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
1394 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
1395
1396       </div>
1397       <div class="tags">
1398
1399
1400         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/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
1401
1402
1403       </div>
1404     </div>
1405     <div class="padding"></div>
1406
1407     <div class="entry">
1408       <div class="title">
1409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
1410       </div>
1411       <div class="date">
1412          9th March 2017
1413       </div>
1414       <div class="body">
1415         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
1416 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
1417 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
1418 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
1419 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
1420 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
1421 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
1422 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
1423
1424 <p><blockquote>
1425 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
1426 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
1427 </blockquote></p>
1428
1429 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
1430 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
1431 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
1432 are noticed.</p>
1433
1434 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
1435 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
1436 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
1437 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
1438 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
1439 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
1440
1441 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
1442 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
1443 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
1444 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
1445 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
1446 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
1447
1448 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
1449
1450 <p><blockquote><pre>
1451 [...]
1452 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
1453 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
1454         opts:   rw,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,namlen=255,acregmin=3,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=129.240.3.145,mountvers=3,mountport=4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
1455         age:    7863311
1456         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
1457         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
1458         events: 61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
1459         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
1460         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
1461         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
1462         per-op statistics
1463                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1464              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
1465              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
1466               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
1467               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
1468             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
1469                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
1470                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
1471               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
1472                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
1473              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
1474                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
1475               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
1476                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
1477               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
1478                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
1479              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
1480          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
1481               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
1482               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
1483             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
1484               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1485
1486 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
1487 [...]
1488 </pre></blockquote></p>
1489
1490 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
1491 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
1492 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
1493 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
1494 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
1495 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
1496 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
1497 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
1498 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
1499 mount options.</p>
1500
1501 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
1502 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
1503 But according to
1504 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
1505 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
1506 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
1507 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
1508 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
1509 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
1510
1511 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
1512 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
1513 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
1514 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
1515 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
1516
1517       </div>
1518       <div class="tags">
1519
1520
1521         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/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
1522
1523
1524       </div>
1525     </div>
1526     <div class="padding"></div>
1527
1528     <div class="entry">
1529       <div class="title">
1530         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</a>
1531       </div>
1532       <div class="date">
1533          3rd March 2017
1534       </div>
1535       <div class="body">
1536         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
1537 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
1538 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
1539 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
1540 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
1541 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
1542 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
1543 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
1544 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
1545
1546 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
1547
1548 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
1549 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
1550 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
1551 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
1552 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
1553 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
1554 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
1555 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
1556
1557       </div>
1558       <div class="tags">
1559
1560
1561         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1562
1563
1564       </div>
1565     </div>
1566     <div class="padding"></div>
1567
1568     <div class="entry">
1569       <div class="title">
1570         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
1571       </div>
1572       <div class="date">
1573          1st March 2017
1574       </div>
1575       <div class="body">
1576         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
1577 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
1578 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
1579 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
1580 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
1581 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
1582 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
1583 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
1584 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
1585 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
1586 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
1587
1588 <blockquote><pre>
1589 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
1590   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
1591   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
1592      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
1593      sleep 1; \
1594   done
1595 300
1596 0+1 oppføringer inn
1597 0+1 oppføringer ut
1598 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
1599 4
1600 8
1601 12
1602 17
1603 21
1604 %
1605 </pre></blockquote>
1606
1607 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
1608 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
1609 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
1610 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
1611
1612 <blockquote><pre>
1613 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
1614   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
1615   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
1616      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
1617      sleep 1; \
1618   done
1619 1079
1620 0+1 oppføringer inn
1621 0+1 oppføringer ut
1622 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
1623 433
1624 1028
1625 1031
1626 1035
1627 1038
1628 %
1629 </pre></blockquote>
1630
1631 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
1632 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
1633
1634 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
1635 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
1636 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
1637 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
1638 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
1639 post.</p>
1640
1641       </div>
1642       <div class="tags">
1643
1644
1645         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>.
1646
1647
1648       </div>
1649     </div>
1650     <div class="padding"></div>
1651
1652     <div class="entry">
1653       <div class="title">
1654         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
1655       </div>
1656       <div class="date">
1657          9th January 2017
1658       </div>
1659       <div class="body">
1660         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
1661 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
1662 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
1663 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
1664 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
1665 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
1666 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
1667 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
1668 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
1669 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
1670 this:
1671
1672 <p><pre>
1673 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1674  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
1675  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
1676  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
1677  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
1678  5  he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.627 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48)  3.172 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.857 ms
1679  6  ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.39)  0.662 ms  0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.23)  0.622 ms
1680  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
1681  8  * * *
1682  9  * * *
1683 [...]
1684 </pre></p>
1685
1686 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
1687 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
1688 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
1689 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
1690 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
1691 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
1692 traceroute request.</p>
1693
1694 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
1695 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
1696 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
1697 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
1698 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
1699
1700 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
1701 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
1702 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
1703 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
1704 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
1705 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
1706 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
1707 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
1708 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
1709
1710 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
1711 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
1712 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
1713 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
1714 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
1715 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
1716 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
1717 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
1718 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
1719 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
1720 render the page (in HAR format using
1721 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
1722 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
1723 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
1724 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
1725 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
1726
1727 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
1728 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
1729
1730 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
1731 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
1732 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
1733 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
1734 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
1735 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
1736 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
1737 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
1738 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
1739 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
1740 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
1741 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
1742 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
1743 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
1744
1745 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
1746 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt="scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
1747
1748 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
1749 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
1750 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
1751 question.
1752 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
1753 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
1754 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
1755 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
1756 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
1757 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
1758 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
1759
1760 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
1761 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt="example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
1762
1763 <p>In the process, I came across the
1764 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
1765 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
1766 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
1767 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
1768 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
1769 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
1770 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
1771 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
1772 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
1773 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
1774 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
1775 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
1776 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
1777 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
1778
1779 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
1780 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
1781
1782 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
1783 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
1784 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
1785 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
1786
1787 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
1788 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
1789 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
1790 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
1791 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
1792 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
1793 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
1794
1795 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
1796 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
1797 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
1798 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
1799 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
1800 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
1801 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
1802
1803 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
1804 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
1805 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
1806 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
1807
1808 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1809 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1810 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1811
1812       </div>
1813       <div class="tags">
1814
1815
1816         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/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</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>.
1817
1818
1819       </div>
1820     </div>
1821     <div class="padding"></div>
1822
1823     <div class="entry">
1824       <div class="title">
1825         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
1826       </div>
1827       <div class="date">
1828         23rd December 2016
1829       </div>
1830       <div class="body">
1831         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
1832 readers probably know, I have been working on the
1833 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
1834 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
1835 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
1836 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
1837 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
1838 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
1839 metadata format.  And today,
1840 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
1841 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
1842 ie using fnmatch():</p>
1843
1844 <p><pre>
1845 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
1846   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
1847 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
1848 Name: pymissile
1849 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
1850 Package: pymissile
1851 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
1852 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
1853 Name: libnxt
1854 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
1855 Package: libnxt
1856 ---
1857 Identifier: t2n [generic]
1858 Name: t2n
1859 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
1860 Package: t2n
1861 ---
1862 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
1863 Name: python-nxt
1864 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
1865 Package: python-nxt
1866 ---
1867 Identifier: nbc [generic]
1868 Name: nbc
1869 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
1870 Package: nbc
1871 %
1872 </pre></p>
1873
1874 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
1875 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
1876
1877 <p><pre>
1878 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
1879 pymissile
1880 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
1881 libnxt
1882 nbc
1883 python-nxt
1884 t2n
1885 %
1886 </pre></p>
1887
1888 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
1889 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
1890
1891 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
1892 make the most of the hardware they have, please
1893 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
1894 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
1895 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
1896 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
1897 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
1898 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
1899 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
1900 part of my involvement in
1901 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
1902 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
1903 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
1904 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
1905 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
1906 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
1907 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
1908 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
1909 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
1910
1911 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1912 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1913 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1914
1915       </div>
1916       <div class="tags">
1917
1918
1919         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>.
1920
1921
1922       </div>
1923     </div>
1924     <div class="padding"></div>
1925
1926     <div class="entry">
1927       <div class="title">
1928         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
1929       </div>
1930       <div class="date">
1931         20th December 2016
1932       </div>
1933       <div class="body">
1934         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1935 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
1936 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
1937 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
1938 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
1939 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
1940 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
1941 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
1942 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
1943 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
1944
1945 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
1946
1947 <p><pre>
1948 % isenkram-lookup
1949 bluez
1950 cheese
1951 ethtool
1952 fprintd
1953 fprintd-demo
1954 gkrellm-thinkbat
1955 hdapsd
1956 libpam-fprintd
1957 pidgin-blinklight
1958 thinkfan
1959 tlp
1960 tp-smapi-dkms
1961 tp-smapi-source
1962 tpb
1963 %
1964 </pre></p>
1965
1966 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
1967 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
1968 I have all the firmware my machine need:
1969
1970 <p><pre>
1971 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1972 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1973 %
1974 </pre></p>
1975
1976 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
1977 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
1978 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
1979 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
1980 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
1981 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
1982 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
1983 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
1984
1985 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
1986 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
1987 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
1988
1989 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
1990 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
1991 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
1992 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
1993 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
1994 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
1995 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
1996 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
1997 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
1998 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
1999 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
2000 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
2001 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
2002 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
2003 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
2004 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
2005 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
2006 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
2007 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
2008 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
2009 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
2010 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
2011 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
2012 zd1211-firmware</p>
2013
2014 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
2015 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
2016 maintainer to
2017 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
2018 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
2019 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
2020 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
2021
2022 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
2023 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
2024 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
2025 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
2026 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
2027
2028       </div>
2029       <div class="tags">
2030
2031
2032         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>.
2033
2034
2035       </div>
2036     </div>
2037     <div class="padding"></div>
2038
2039     <div class="entry">
2040       <div class="title">
2041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="date">
2044         11th December 2016
2045       </div>
2046       <div class="body">
2047         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
2048
2049 <p>In my early years, I played
2050 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
2051 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
2052 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
2053 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
2054 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
2055 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
2056 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
2057 small.</p>
2058
2059 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
2060 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
2061 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
2062 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
2063 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
2064 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
2065 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
2066 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
2067 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
2068
2069 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
2070 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
2071 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
2072 advantages of the
2073 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
2074 where information about each planet is easily available with common
2075 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
2076 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
2077 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
2078 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
2079 after less then a week.</p>
2080
2081 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
2082 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
2083 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
2084
2085 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2086 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2087 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2088
2089       </div>
2090       <div class="tags">
2091
2092
2093         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
2094
2095
2096       </div>
2097     </div>
2098     <div class="padding"></div>
2099
2100     <div class="entry">
2101       <div class="title">
2102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
2103       </div>
2104       <div class="date">
2105         25th November 2016
2106       </div>
2107       <div class="body">
2108         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
2109 installation system, observing how using
2110 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
2111 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
2112 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
2113 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
2114 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
2115 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
2116 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
2117 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
2118 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
2119 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
2120 up the process make perfect sense.
2121
2122 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
2123 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
2124 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
2125 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
2126 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
2127 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
2128 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
2129 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
2130 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
2131 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
2132
2133 <blockquote><pre>
2134 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
2135 </pre></blockquote>
2136
2137 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
2138 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
2139 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
2140 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
2141 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
2142 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
2143 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
2144 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
2145 tested its impact.</p>
2146
2147
2148       </div>
2149       <div class="tags">
2150
2151
2152         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>.
2153
2154
2155       </div>
2156     </div>
2157     <div class="padding"></div>
2158
2159     <div class="entry">
2160       <div class="title">
2161         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="date">
2164         24th November 2016
2165       </div>
2166       <div class="body">
2167         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
2168 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
2169 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
2170 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
2171 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
2172 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
2173 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
2174 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
2175 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
2176 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
2177 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
2178 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
2179 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
2180 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
2181 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
2182 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
2183 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
2184 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
2185 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
2186
2187 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
2188 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
2189 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
2190 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
2191 api.apertium.org.  Se
2192 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
2193 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
2194 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
2195 nynorsk.</p>
2196
2197 <hr/>
2198
2199 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
2200 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
2201 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
2202 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
2203 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
2204 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
2205 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
2206 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
2207 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
2208 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
2209 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
2210 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
2211 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
2212 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
2213 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
2214 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
2215 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
2216 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
2217 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
2218
2219 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
2220 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
2221 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
2222 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
2223 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
2224 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
2225 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
2226 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
2227 nynorsk.</p>
2228
2229       </div>
2230       <div class="tags">
2231
2232
2233         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/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
2234
2235
2236       </div>
2237     </div>
2238     <div class="padding"></div>
2239
2240     <div class="entry">
2241       <div class="title">
2242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
2243       </div>
2244       <div class="date">
2245         13th November 2016
2246       </div>
2247       <div class="body">
2248         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
2249 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
2250 multi-threaded program, finally
2251 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
2252 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
2253 months since
2254 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
2255 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
2256 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
2257 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
2258 JavaScript libraries.</p>
2259
2260 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
2261
2262 <p><blockquote>
2263 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
2264 </blockquote></p>
2265
2266 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
2267 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
2268 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
2269 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
2270 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
2271
2272 <p><blockquote>
2273 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
2274 </blockquote></p>
2275
2276 <p>See the project home page and the
2277 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
2278 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
2279 working.</p>
2280
2281       </div>
2282       <div class="tags">
2283
2284
2285         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>.
2286
2287
2288       </div>
2289     </div>
2290     <div class="padding"></div>
2291
2292     <div class="entry">
2293       <div class="title">
2294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
2295       </div>
2296       <div class="date">
2297          4th November 2016
2298       </div>
2299       <div class="body">
2300         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
2301 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
2302 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
2303 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
2304 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
2305 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
2306 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
2307 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
2308 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
2309 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
2310 and had
2311 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
2312 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
2313 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
2314 loved ones. :)</p>
2315
2316 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
2317 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
2318 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
2319 building
2320 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
2321 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
2322 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
2323 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
2324 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
2325 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
2326 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
2327 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
2328
2329 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
2330
2331 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
2332 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
2333 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
2334 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
2335 the battery status run low:</p>
2336
2337 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
2338    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
2339 </video></p>
2340
2341 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
2342 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
2343
2344 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
2345 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
2346 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
2347 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
2348 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
2349 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
2350 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
2351 should.</p>
2352
2353       </div>
2354       <div class="tags">
2355
2356
2357         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/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2358
2359
2360       </div>
2361     </div>
2362     <div class="padding"></div>
2363
2364     <div class="entry">
2365       <div class="title">
2366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
2367       </div>
2368       <div class="date">
2369         10th October 2016
2370       </div>
2371       <div class="body">
2372         <p>In July
2373 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
2374 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
2375 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
2376 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
2377
2378 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
2379 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
2380 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
2381 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
2382 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
2383 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
2384 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
2385 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
2386 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
2387 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
2388 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
2389 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
2390 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
2391 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
2392 time.</p>
2393
2394 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
2395 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
2396 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
2397 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
2398 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
2399 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
2400 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
2401
2402 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
2403 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
2404 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
2405 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
2406 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
2407 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
2408 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
2409 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
2410 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
2411 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
2412
2413 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
2414
2415 <ol>
2416
2417 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
2418 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
2419 know, so you need to install it.
2420
2421 <pre>
2422 apt install git tor chromium
2423 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
2424 </pre></li>
2425
2426 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
2427 block below.</li>
2428
2429 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
2430 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
2431
2432 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
2433 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
2434 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
2435 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
2436 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
2437
2438 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
2439 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
2440 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
2441 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
2442 a associated contact database.</li>
2443
2444 </ol>
2445
2446 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
2447 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
2448 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
2449 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
2450 example
2451 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
2452 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
2453 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
2454 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
2455 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
2456 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
2457 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
2458 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
2459 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
2460 working on Debian Stable.</p>
2461
2462 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
2463 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
2464 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
2465
2466 <pre>
2467 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
2468 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
2469 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
2470 --- a/js/background.js
2471 +++ b/js/background.js
2472 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
2473          });
2474      });
2475
2476 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
2477 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
2478      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
2479 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
2480 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
2481      var messageReceiver;
2482      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
2483          if (messageReceiver) {
2484 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
2485 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
2486 --- a/js/expire.js
2487 +++ b/js/expire.js
2488 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
2489  ;(function() {
2490      'use strict';
2491 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
2492 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
2493
2494      window.extension = window.extension || {};
2495
2496 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
2497 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
2498 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
2499 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
2500 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
2501              return {
2502                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
2503                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
2504 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
2505 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
2506 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
2507              };
2508          },
2509          clearQR: function() {
2510 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
2511 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
2512 --- a/options.html
2513 +++ b/options.html
2514 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
2515          &lt;div class='nav'>
2516            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
2517            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
2518 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
2519 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
2520 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
2521 +
2522 +         &lt;/div>
2523            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
2524            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
2525            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
2526 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
2527 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
2528 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
2529 +#!/bin/sh
2530 +set -e
2531 +cd $(dirname $0)
2532 +mkdir -p userdata
2533 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
2534 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
2535 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
2536 +fi
2537 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
2538 +exec chromium \
2539 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
2540 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
2541 EOF
2542 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
2543 </pre>
2544
2545 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2546 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2547 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2548
2549       </div>
2550       <div class="tags">
2551
2552
2553         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2554
2555
2556       </div>
2557     </div>
2558     <div class="padding"></div>
2559
2560     <div class="entry">
2561       <div class="title">
2562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
2563       </div>
2564       <div class="date">
2565          7th October 2016
2566       </div>
2567       <div class="body">
2568         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
2569 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
2570 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
2571 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
2572 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
2573 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
2574 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
2575 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
2576 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
2577 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
2578 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
2579 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
2580 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
2581
2582 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
2583 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
2584 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
2585 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
2586 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
2587 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
2588
2589 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
2590 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
2591 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
2592 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
2593 identifiers.</p>
2594
2595 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
2596 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
2597 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
2598 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
2599 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
2600 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
2601 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
2602 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
2603 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
2604 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
2605 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
2606 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
2607 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
2608 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
2609
2610 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
2611 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
2612 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
2613 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
2614 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
2615 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
2616 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
2617
2618 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
2619 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
2620 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
2621 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
2622 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
2623 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
2624 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
2625 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
2626 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
2627 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
2628 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
2629 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
2630 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
2631 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
2632 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
2633 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
2634 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
2635
2636 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
2637 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
2638 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
2639 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
2640 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
2641 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
2642 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
2643
2644 <p><pre>
2645 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
2646     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
2647 </pre></p>
2648
2649 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
2650 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
2651 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
2652 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
2653 to detect this?</p>
2654
2655 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
2656 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
2657 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
2658 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
2659 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
2660 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
2661 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
2662 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
2663 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
2664 directly if no such class exist.</p>
2665
2666 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
2667 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
2668 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
2669
2670 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
2671 please join us on our IRC channel
2672 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
2673 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
2674 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
2675 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
2676
2677 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2678 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2679 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2680
2681       </div>
2682       <div class="tags">
2683
2684
2685         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>.
2686
2687
2688       </div>
2689     </div>
2690     <div class="padding"></div>
2691
2692     <div class="entry">
2693       <div class="title">
2694         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
2695       </div>
2696       <div class="date">
2697         30th August 2016
2698       </div>
2699       <div class="body">
2700         <p>In April we
2701 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
2702 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
2703 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
2704 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
2705 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
2706 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
2707 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
2708 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
2709 contributing using
2710 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2711 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
2712 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2713 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
2714 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2715 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
2716 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
2717
2718 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
2719 electronic form.</p>
2720
2721       </div>
2722       <div class="tags">
2723
2724
2725         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2726
2727
2728       </div>
2729     </div>
2730     <div class="padding"></div>
2731
2732     <div class="entry">
2733       <div class="title">
2734         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
2735       </div>
2736       <div class="date">
2737         11th August 2016
2738       </div>
2739       <div class="body">
2740         <p>This summer, I read a great article
2741 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
2742 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
2743 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
2744 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
2745 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
2746 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
2747 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
2748 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
2749 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
2750 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
2751 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
2752 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
2753
2754 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
2755 get the system into Debian.  I
2756 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
2757 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
2758 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
2759 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
2760 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
2761 profiling information included in the source package.
2762 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
2763
2764 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
2765 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
2766
2767 <p><blockquote><pre>
2768 coz run --- program-to-run
2769 </pre></blockquote></p>
2770
2771 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
2772 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
2773 most, use a web browser and either point it to
2774 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
2775 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
2776 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
2777 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
2778 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
2779 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
2780 targeted experiments.</p>
2781
2782 <p>A video published by ACM
2783 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
2784 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
2785 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
2786 titled
2787 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
2788 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
2789
2790 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
2791 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
2792 because it uses a
2793 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
2794 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
2795 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
2796 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
2797
2798 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
2799 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
2800 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
2801 C++ libraries.</p>
2802
2803       </div>
2804       <div class="tags">
2805
2806
2807         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
2808
2809
2810       </div>
2811     </div>
2812     <div class="padding"></div>
2813
2814     <div class="entry">
2815       <div class="title">
2816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
2817       </div>
2818       <div class="date">
2819          7th July 2016
2820       </div>
2821       <div class="body">
2822         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
2823 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
2824 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
2825 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
2826 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
2827 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
2828 microphone The initial idea had been to just
2829 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
2830 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
2831 until a few days ago.</p>
2832
2833 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
2834 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
2835 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
2836 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
2837 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
2838 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
2839 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
2840
2841 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
2842 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
2843 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
2844 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
2845 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
2846 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
2847 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
2848 him.</p>
2849
2850 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
2851 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
2852 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
2853 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
2854 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
2855 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
2856 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
2857 devices it would work for.</p>
2858
2859 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
2860 followed some instructions
2861 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
2862 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
2863 machine with Debian testing:</p>
2864
2865 <p><pre>
2866 adb reboot-bootloader
2867 fastboot oem rebootRUU
2868 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
2869 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
2870 fastboot reboot
2871 </pre></p>
2872
2873 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
2874 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
2875 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
2876 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
2877 too.</p>
2878
2879 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
2880 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
2881 like this:</p>
2882
2883 <p><pre>
2884 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
2885 </pre>
2886
2887 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
2888 this:</p>
2889
2890 <p><pre>
2891 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
2892 </pre></p>
2893
2894 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
2895 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
2896 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
2897 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
2898 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
2899
2900       </div>
2901       <div class="tags">
2902
2903
2904         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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2905
2906
2907       </div>
2908     </div>
2909     <div class="padding"></div>
2910
2911     <div class="entry">
2912       <div class="title">
2913         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
2914       </div>
2915       <div class="date">
2916          3rd July 2016
2917       </div>
2918       <div class="body">
2919         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
2920 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
2921 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
2922 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
2923 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
2924 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
2925 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
2926 Github source, compared it to the source in
2927 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
2928 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
2929 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
2930 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
2931 the recipe how I did it.</p>
2932
2933 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
2934
2935 <pre>
2936 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
2937 </pre>
2938
2939 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
2940 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
2941
2942 <pre>
2943 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
2944 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2945 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
2946 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
2947 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
2948          });
2949      });
2950
2951 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
2952 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
2953 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
2954 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
2955      var messageReceiver;
2956      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
2957          if (messageReceiver) {
2958 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
2959 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
2960 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
2961 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
2962  ;(function() {
2963      'use strict';
2964 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
2965 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
2966
2967      window.extension = window.extension || {};
2968
2969 EOF
2970 </pre>
2971
2972 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
2973 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
2974 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
2975 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
2976
2977 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
2978 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
2979
2980 <pre>
2981 #!/bin/sh
2982 cd $(dirname $0)
2983 mkdir -p userdata
2984 exec chromium \
2985   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
2986   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
2987 </pre>
2988
2989 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
2990 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
2991 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
2992 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
2993 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
2994
2995 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
2996 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
2997 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
2998 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
2999 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
3000 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
3001 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
3002 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
3003 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
3004 Signal from my laptop.
3005
3006 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
3007 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
3008 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
3009 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
3010 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
3011 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
3012 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
3013 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
3014 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
3015 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
3016 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
3017 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
3018
3019 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
3020 on this topic in
3021 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
3022 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
3023 phone</a>.</p>
3024
3025       </div>
3026       <div class="tags">
3027
3028
3029         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3030
3031
3032       </div>
3033     </div>
3034     <div class="padding"></div>
3035
3036     <div class="entry">
3037       <div class="title">
3038         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
3039       </div>
3040       <div class="date">
3041          6th June 2016
3042       </div>
3043       <div class="body">
3044         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
3045 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
3046 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
3047 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
3048 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
3049 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
3050 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
3051 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
3052 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
3053
3054 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
3055 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
3056 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
3057 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
3058 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
3059 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
3060 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
3061
3062 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
3063 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
3064 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
3065 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
3066 toten and parole.</p>
3067
3068 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
3069 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
3070 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
3071 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
3072 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
3073 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
3074 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
3075 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
3076 formats.</p>
3077
3078       </div>
3079       <div class="tags">
3080
3081
3082         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>.
3083
3084
3085       </div>
3086     </div>
3087     <div class="padding"></div>
3088
3089     <div class="entry">
3090       <div class="title">
3091         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
3092       </div>
3093       <div class="date">
3094          5th June 2016
3095       </div>
3096       <div class="body">
3097         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
3098 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
3099 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
3100 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
3101 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
3102 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
3103 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
3104 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
3105 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
3106 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
3107 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
3108 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
3109 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
3110 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
3111 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
3112 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
3113 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
3114 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
3115 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
3116 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
3117
3118 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
3119 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
3120 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
3121 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
3122 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
3123 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
3124 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
3125 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
3126 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
3127 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
3128 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
3129 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
3130 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
3131 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
3132
3133 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
3134 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
3135 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
3136 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
3137 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
3138 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
3139 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
3140 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
3141
3142 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
3143 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
3144 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
3145 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
3146 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
3147 information is collected from
3148 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
3149 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
3150 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
3151 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
3152 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
3153 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
3154 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
3155 type (preferably
3156 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
3157 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
3158 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
3159 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
3160
3161 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
3162 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
3163 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
3164
3165 <p><blockquote><pre>
3166 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
3167 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
3168   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
3169     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
3170     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
3171     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
3172   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
3173 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
3174 </pre></blockquote></p>
3175
3176 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
3177 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
3178 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
3179 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
3180
3181 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
3182 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
3183 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
3184
3185 <p><blockquote><pre>
3186 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
3187 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
3188 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
3189 %
3190 </pre></blockquote></p>
3191
3192 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
3193 MimeType= line.</p>
3194
3195 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
3196 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
3197 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
3198 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
3199 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
3200 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
3201 fixed. :)</p>
3202
3203       </div>
3204       <div class="tags">
3205
3206
3207         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>.
3208
3209
3210       </div>
3211     </div>
3212     <div class="padding"></div>
3213
3214     <div class="entry">
3215       <div class="title">
3216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
3217       </div>
3218       <div class="date">
3219         25th May 2016
3220       </div>
3221       <div class="body">
3222         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
3223 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
3224 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
3225 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
3226 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
3227 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
3228 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
3229 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
3230 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
3231 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
3232 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
3233 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
3234
3235 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
3236 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
3237 is going away and is generally being replaced by
3238 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
3239 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
3240 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
3241 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
3242 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
3243 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
3244 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
3245 and see if it is recognised.</p>
3246
3247 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
3248 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
3249 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
3250
3251 <p><blockquote><pre>
3252 % isenkram-lookup
3253 bluez
3254 cheese
3255 fprintd
3256 fprintd-demo
3257 gkrellm-thinkbat
3258 hdapsd
3259 libpam-fprintd
3260 pidgin-blinklight
3261 thinkfan
3262 tleds
3263 tp-smapi-dkms
3264 tp-smapi-source
3265 tpb
3266 %p
3267 </pre></blockquote></p>
3268
3269 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
3270 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
3271 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3272 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
3273 See
3274 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
3275 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
3276
3277       </div>
3278       <div class="tags">
3279
3280
3281         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>.
3282
3283
3284       </div>
3285     </div>
3286     <div class="padding"></div>
3287
3288     <div class="entry">
3289       <div class="title">
3290         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
3291       </div>
3292       <div class="date">
3293         23rd May 2016
3294       </div>
3295       <div class="body">
3296         <p>Yesterday I updated the
3297 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
3298 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
3299 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
3300 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
3301 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
3302 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
3303 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
3304 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
3305 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
3306 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
3307
3308 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
3309 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
3310 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
3311 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
3312 capacity.</p>
3313
3314 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
3315
3316 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
3317 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
3318 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
3319 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
3320
3321 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
3322
3323 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
3324 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
3325 shrinking. :(</p>
3326
3327 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
3328 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
3329 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
3330 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
3331 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
3332 machine.</p>
3333
3334 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
3335 check out the
3336 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
3337 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
3338 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
3339 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
3340 Patches are very welcome.</p>
3341
3342 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3343 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3344 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3345
3346       </div>
3347       <div class="tags">
3348
3349
3350         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>.
3351
3352
3353       </div>
3354     </div>
3355     <div class="padding"></div>
3356
3357     <div class="entry">
3358       <div class="title">
3359         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
3360       </div>
3361       <div class="date">
3362         12th May 2016
3363       </div>
3364       <div class="body">
3365         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
3366 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
3367 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
3368 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
3369 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
3370 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
3371 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
3372 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
3373 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
3374 great if you could help out with
3375 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
3376 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
3377
3378       </div>
3379       <div class="tags">
3380
3381
3382         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>.
3383
3384
3385       </div>
3386     </div>
3387     <div class="padding"></div>
3388
3389     <div class="entry">
3390       <div class="title">
3391         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="date">
3394          8th May 2016
3395       </div>
3396       <div class="body">
3397         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
3398 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
3399
3400 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
3401 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
3402 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
3403 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
3404 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
3405 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
3406 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
3407 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
3408 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
3409 players.</p>
3410
3411 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
3412 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
3413 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
3414 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
3415 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
3416 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
3417 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
3418 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
3419 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
3420 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
3421 support most file formats.</p>
3422
3423 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
3424 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
3425 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
3426 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
3427 listed first in the table.</p>
3428
3429 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
3430 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
3431 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
3432 support?</p>
3433
3434       </div>
3435       <div class="tags">
3436
3437
3438         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>.
3439
3440
3441       </div>
3442     </div>
3443     <div class="padding"></div>
3444
3445     <div class="entry">
3446       <div class="title">
3447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
3448       </div>
3449       <div class="date">
3450          4th May 2016
3451       </div>
3452       <div class="body">
3453         A friend of mine made me aware of
3454 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
3455 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
3456 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
3457
3458 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
3459 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
3460 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
3461 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
3462 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
3463 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
3464 production started.</p>
3465
3466 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
3467 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
3468 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
3469
3470       </div>
3471       <div class="tags">
3472
3473
3474         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>.
3475
3476
3477       </div>
3478     </div>
3479     <div class="padding"></div>
3480
3481     <div class="entry">
3482       <div class="title">
3483         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
3484       </div>
3485       <div class="date">
3486         10th April 2016
3487       </div>
3488       <div class="body">
3489         <p>During this weekends
3490 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
3491 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
3492 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
3493 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
3494 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
3495 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
3496 contributing using
3497 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
3498 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
3499 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
3500 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
3501 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
3502 contributors</a>.</p>
3503
3504 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
3505 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
3506 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
3507 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
3508 available for many more languages.</p>
3509
3510       </div>
3511       <div class="tags">
3512
3513
3514         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3515
3516
3517       </div>
3518     </div>
3519     <div class="padding"></div>
3520
3521     <div class="entry">
3522       <div class="title">
3523         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
3524       </div>
3525       <div class="date">
3526          7th April 2016
3527       </div>
3528       <div class="body">
3529         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
3530 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
3531 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
3532 But I might be wrong.</p>
3533
3534 <p>According to
3535 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
3536 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
3537 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
3538 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
3539 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
3540 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
3541 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
3542 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
3543 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
3544 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
3545
3546 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
3547 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
3548 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
3549 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
3550 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
3551 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
3552 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
3553 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
3554 team status page</a>, and
3555 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
3556 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
3557
3558 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
3559 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
3560 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
3561 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
3562 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
3563 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
3564 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
3565 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
3566 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
3567 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
3568 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
3569 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
3570
3571       </div>
3572       <div class="tags">
3573
3574
3575         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>.
3576
3577
3578       </div>
3579     </div>
3580     <div class="padding"></div>
3581
3582     <div class="entry">
3583       <div class="title">
3584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
3585       </div>
3586       <div class="date">
3587         23rd March 2016
3588       </div>
3589       <div class="body">
3590         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
3591 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
3592 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
3593 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
3594 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
3595 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
3596 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
3597 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
3598
3599 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
3600 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
3601 and lifetime prediction by running:
3602
3603 <p><pre>
3604 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
3605 </pre></p>
3606
3607 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
3608
3609 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
3610 entry yet):</p>
3611
3612 <p><pre>
3613 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
3614 </pre></p>
3615
3616 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
3617 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
3618 few years of data.</p>
3619
3620 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
3621 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
3622 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
3623 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
3624 know.  The issue is reported as
3625 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
3626 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
3627 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
3628 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
3629 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
3630
3631 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
3632 check out the
3633 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
3634 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
3635 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
3636 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
3637 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
3638
3639       </div>
3640       <div class="tags">
3641
3642
3643         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>.
3644
3645
3646       </div>
3647     </div>
3648     <div class="padding"></div>
3649
3650     <div class="entry">
3651       <div class="title">
3652         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
3653       </div>
3654       <div class="date">
3655         15th March 2016
3656       </div>
3657       <div class="body">
3658         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
3659 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
3660 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
3661 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
3662 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
3663 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
3664 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
3665 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
3666 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
3667 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
3668 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
3669
3670 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
3671 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
3672 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
3673 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
3674 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
3675 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
3676 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
3677 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
3678 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
3679 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
3680 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
3681
3682 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
3683
3684 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
3685 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
3686 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
3687 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
3688 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
3689 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
3690
3691 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
3692 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
3693 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
3694 and graphing.</p>
3695
3696 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
3697 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
3698 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
3699 on
3700 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
3701 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
3702
3703       </div>
3704       <div class="tags">
3705
3706
3707         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>.
3708
3709
3710       </div>
3711     </div>
3712     <div class="padding"></div>
3713
3714     <div class="entry">
3715       <div class="title">
3716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
3717       </div>
3718       <div class="date">
3719         19th February 2016
3720       </div>
3721       <div class="body">
3722         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
3723 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
3724 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
3725 the code in the package in question, preferably in
3726 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
3727 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
3728
3729 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
3730 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
3731 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
3732 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
3733 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
3734 out what was wrong with
3735 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
3736 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
3737 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
3738 semi-automatically.</p>
3739
3740 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
3741 file based on the code in the source package,
3742 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
3743 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
3744 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
3745 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
3746 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
3747 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
3748 option in
3749 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
3750 blog posts from 2014</a>.
3751
3752 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
3753
3754 <p><pre>
3755 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
3756 </pre></p>
3757
3758 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
3759 this might not be the best option.</p>
3760
3761 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
3762 this approach in
3763 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
3764 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
3765 dpkg-copyright' option:
3766
3767 <p><pre>
3768 cme update dpkg-copyright
3769 </pre></p>
3770
3771 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
3772 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
3773
3774 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
3775 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
3776 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
3777 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
3778 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
3779 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
3780 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
3781 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
3782 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
3783 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
3784
3785 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
3786 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
3787 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
3788 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
3789
3790 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
3791 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
3792 planet.debian.org.</p>
3793
3794 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3795 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3796 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3797
3798 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
3799 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
3800
3801 <p><pre>
3802 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
3803   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
3804 </pre></p>
3805
3806 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
3807 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
3808 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
3809 with my packages in the future.</p>
3810
3811 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
3812 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
3813 command line.</p>
3814
3815       </div>
3816       <div class="tags">
3817
3818
3819         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>.
3820
3821
3822       </div>
3823     </div>
3824     <div class="padding"></div>
3825
3826     <div class="entry">
3827       <div class="title">
3828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
3829       </div>
3830       <div class="date">
3831          4th February 2016
3832       </div>
3833       <div class="body">
3834         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
3835 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
3836 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
3837 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
3838 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
3839 about. :)</p>
3840
3841 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
3842 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
3843 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
3844 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
3845 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
3846 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
3847
3848 <blockquote><pre>
3849 % apt install appstream
3850 [...]
3851 % apt update
3852 [...]
3853 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
3854   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
3855 firmware-qlogic
3856 %
3857 </pre></blockquote>
3858
3859 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
3860 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
3861 a way appstream can use.</p>
3862
3863 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
3864 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
3865 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
3866 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
3867 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
3868 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
3869
3870 <blockquote><pre>
3871 % apt install appstream
3872 [...]
3873 % apt update
3874 [...]
3875 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
3876   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
3877 bkchem
3878 phototonic
3879 inkscape
3880 shutter
3881 tetzle
3882 geeqie
3883 xia
3884 pinta
3885 gthumb
3886 karbon
3887 comix
3888 mirage
3889 viewnior
3890 postr
3891 ristretto
3892 kolourpaint4
3893 eog
3894 eom
3895 gimagereader
3896 midori
3897 %
3898 </pre></blockquote>
3899
3900 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
3901 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
3902
3903       </div>
3904       <div class="tags">
3905
3906
3907         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>.
3908
3909
3910       </div>
3911     </div>
3912     <div class="padding"></div>
3913
3914     <div class="entry">
3915       <div class="title">
3916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
3917       </div>
3918       <div class="date">
3919         24th January 2016
3920       </div>
3921       <div class="body">
3922         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
3923 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
3924 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
3925 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
3926 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
3927 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
3928 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
3929 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
3930 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
3931 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
3932 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
3933 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
3934 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
3935 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
3936 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
3937 entities.</p>
3938
3939 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
3940
3941 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
3942 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
3943 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
3944 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
3945 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
3946 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
3947 tool to do so is called
3948 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
3949 discovered it when I read
3950 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
3951 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
3952 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
3953 The python program was in Debian, but
3954 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
3955 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
3956 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
3957 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
3958 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
3959 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
3960 are now included
3961 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
3962
3963 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
3964 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
3965 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
3966 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
3967 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
3968 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
3969 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
3970 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
3971 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
3972 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
3973 about yourself with the services.</p>
3974
3975 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
3976 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
3977 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
3978 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
3979 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
3980 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
3981 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
3982 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
3983 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
3984 things.  A similar technique have been
3985 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
3986 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
3987 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
3988 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
3989 public.</p>
3990
3991 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
3992 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
3993 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
3994 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
3995
3996 <p>(I have uploaded
3997 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
3998 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
3999 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
4000
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="tags">
4003
4004
4005         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4006
4007
4008       </div>
4009     </div>
4010     <div class="padding"></div>
4011
4012     <div class="entry">
4013       <div class="title">
4014         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
4015       </div>
4016       <div class="date">
4017         15th January 2016
4018       </div>
4019       <div class="body">
4020         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
4021 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
4022 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
4023 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
4024 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
4025 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
4026 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
4027 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
4028 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
4029 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
4030 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
4031 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
4032 was not the first to propose this, as the
4033 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
4034 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
4035 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
4036 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
4037
4038 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
4039 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
4040 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
4041 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
4042 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
4043
4044 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
4045 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
4046 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
4047 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
4048 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
4049 done in /etc/.</p>
4050
4051 <blockquote><pre>
4052 apt install apt-transport-tor
4053 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
4054 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
4055 </pre></blockquote>
4056
4057 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
4058 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
4059 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
4060 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
4061
4062 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
4063 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
4064 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
4065 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
4066 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
4067 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
4068
4069 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
4070 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
4071 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
4072 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
4073 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
4074
4075 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
4076 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
4077 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
4078 system.</p>
4079
4080       </div>
4081       <div class="tags">
4082
4083
4084         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>.
4085
4086
4087       </div>
4088     </div>
4089     <div class="padding"></div>
4090
4091     <div class="entry">
4092       <div class="title">
4093         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
4094       </div>
4095       <div class="date">
4096         23rd December 2015
4097       </div>
4098       <div class="body">
4099         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
4100 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
4101 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
4102 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
4103 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
4104 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
4105
4106 <p>A few days I came across
4107 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
4108 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
4109 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
4110 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
4111 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
4112 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
4113 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
4114 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
4115 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
4116 discovered the developer
4117 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
4118 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
4119 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
4120 archive.</p>
4121
4122 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
4123 it into Debian, where it currently
4124 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
4125 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
4126
4127 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
4128 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
4129 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
4130 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
4131 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
4132 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
4133 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
4134 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
4135 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
4136 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
4137 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
4138 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
4139
4140 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
4141 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
4142 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
4143 package show up in unstable.</p>
4144
4145       </div>
4146       <div class="tags">
4147
4148
4149         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4150
4151
4152       </div>
4153     </div>
4154     <div class="padding"></div>
4155
4156     <div class="entry">
4157       <div class="title">
4158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
4159       </div>
4160       <div class="date">
4161         20th December 2015
4162       </div>
4163       <div class="body">
4164         <p>Around three years ago, I created
4165 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
4166 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
4167 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
4168 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
4169 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
4170 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
4171 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
4172 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
4173 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
4174 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
4175 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
4176 with.</p>
4177
4178 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
4179 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
4180 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
4181 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
4182 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
4183 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
4184 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
4185 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
4186 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
4187 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
4188 Debian version of appstream.</p>
4189
4190 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
4191 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
4192 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
4193 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
4194 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
4195 how do add the required
4196 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
4197 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
4198 this content:</p>
4199
4200 <blockquote><pre>
4201 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
4202 &lt;component&gt;
4203   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
4204   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
4205   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
4206   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
4207   &lt;description&gt;
4208     &lt;p&gt;
4209       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
4210       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
4211       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
4212       launcher.
4213     &lt;/p&gt;
4214   &lt;/description&gt;
4215   &lt;provides&gt;
4216     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
4217   &lt;/provides&gt;
4218 &lt;/component&gt;
4219 </pre></blockquote>
4220
4221 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
4222 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
4223 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
4224 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
4225 0202.</p>
4226
4227 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
4228 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
4229 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
4230 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
4231 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
4232 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
4233 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
4234 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
4235
4236 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
4237 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
4238 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
4239 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
4240 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
4241
4242 <blockquote><pre>
4243 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
4244 </pre></blockquote>
4245
4246 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
4247 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
4248 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
4249 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
4250 question.</p>
4251
4252 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
4253 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
4254
4255 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
4256 try running this command on the command line:</p>
4257
4258 <blockquote><pre>
4259 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
4260 </pre></blockquote>
4261
4262 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
4263 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
4264 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
4265
4266       </div>
4267       <div class="tags">
4268
4269
4270         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>.
4271
4272
4273       </div>
4274     </div>
4275     <div class="padding"></div>
4276
4277     <div class="entry">
4278       <div class="title">
4279         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
4280       </div>
4281       <div class="date">
4282         30th November 2015
4283       </div>
4284       <div class="body">
4285         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
4286 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
4287 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
4288 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
4289 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
4290
4291 <blockquote>
4292
4293 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
4294
4295 <blockquote>
4296 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
4297
4298 The first step is to choose a
4299 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
4300 code.<br/>
4301
4302 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
4303 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
4304
4305 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
4306 work<br/>
4307
4308 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
4309 </blockquote>
4310
4311 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
4312 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
4313 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
4314 0x57</a></small></p>
4315
4316 <p>As the Debian Website
4317 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
4318 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
4319 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
4320 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
4321 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
4322 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
4323 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
4324 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
4325 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
4326 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
4327 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
4328 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
4329 Freedom">FaiF</a>
4330 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
4331 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
4332 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
4333 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
4334 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
4335 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
4336 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
4337 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
4338 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
4339 In March the SFC supported a
4340 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
4341 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
4342 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
4343 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
4344 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
4345 conferences
4346 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
4347 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
4348 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
4349 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
4350 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
4351 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
4352 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
4353 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
4354 Software.</p>
4355
4356 <p>If you support Free Software,
4357 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
4358 what the SFC do, agree with their
4359 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
4360 principles</a>, are happy about their
4361 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
4362 work on a project that is an SFC
4363 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
4364 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
4365 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
4366 Allan Webber</a>,
4367 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
4368 Smith</a>,
4369 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
4370 Bacon</a>, myself and
4371 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
4372 becoming a
4373 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
4374 next week your donation will be
4375 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
4376 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
4377 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
4378 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
4379 social media accounts.</p>
4380
4381 </blockquote>
4382
4383 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
4384 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
4385 supporter too?</p>
4386
4387       </div>
4388       <div class="tags">
4389
4390
4391         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
4392
4393
4394       </div>
4395     </div>
4396     <div class="padding"></div>
4397
4398     <div class="entry">
4399       <div class="title">
4400         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
4401       </div>
4402       <div class="date">
4403         17th November 2015
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="body">
4406         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
4407 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
4408 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
4409 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
4410 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
4411 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
4412 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
4413 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
4414 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
4415 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
4416
4417 <pre>
4418 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
4419       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
4420 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
4421 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
4422 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
4423 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
4424 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
4425 </pre>
4426
4427 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
4428 my old key.</p>
4429
4430 <p>If you signed my old key
4431 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
4432 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
4433 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
4434 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
4435
4436       </div>
4437       <div class="tags">
4438
4439
4440         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>.
4441
4442
4443       </div>
4444     </div>
4445     <div class="padding"></div>
4446
4447     <div class="entry">
4448       <div class="title">
4449         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
4450       </div>
4451       <div class="date">
4452         24th September 2015
4453       </div>
4454       <div class="body">
4455         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
4456 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
4457 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
4458 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
4459 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
4460 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
4461 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
4462
4463 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
4464
4465 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
4466 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
4467 by someone else.  I found
4468 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
4469 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
4470 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
4471 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
4472 from him.  Via
4473 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
4474 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
4475 discovered
4476 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
4477 available in Debian.</p>
4478
4479 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
4480 battery stats ever since. Now my
4481 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
4482 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
4483 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
4484 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
4485
4486 <pre>
4487 #!/bin/sh
4488 # Inspired by
4489 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
4490 # See also
4491 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
4492 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
4493
4494 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
4495     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
4496
4497 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
4498     (
4499         printf "timestamp,"
4500         for f in $files; do
4501             printf "%s," $f
4502         done
4503         echo
4504     ) > "$logfile"
4505 fi
4506
4507 log_battery() {
4508     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
4509     # when several log processes run in parallel.
4510     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
4511         for f in $files; do \
4512             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
4513         done)
4514     echo "$msg"
4515 }
4516
4517 cd /sys/class/power_supply
4518
4519 for bat in BAT*; do
4520     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
4521 done
4522 </pre>
4523
4524 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
4525 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
4526 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
4527 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
4528 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
4529 The code for the Debian package
4530 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
4531 available on github</a>.</p>
4532
4533 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
4534
4535 <pre>
4536 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
4537 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
4538 [...]
4539 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
4540 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
4541 </pre>
4542
4543 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
4544 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
4545 battery.</p>
4546
4547 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
4548 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
4549 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
4550 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
4551 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
4552 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
4553 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
4554 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
4555 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
4556 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
4557 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
4558 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
4559 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
4560 Linux too.</p>
4561
4562 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
4563 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
4564 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
4565 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
4566 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
4567 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
4568 load).</p>
4569
4570 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
4571 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
4572 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
4573 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
4574 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
4575 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
4576 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
4577 those.</p>
4578
4579 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
4580 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
4581 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
4582 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
4583 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
4584 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
4585 specific.</p>
4586
4587       </div>
4588       <div class="tags">
4589
4590
4591         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>.
4592
4593
4594       </div>
4595     </div>
4596     <div class="padding"></div>
4597
4598     <div class="entry">
4599       <div class="title">
4600         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
4601       </div>
4602       <div class="date">
4603          5th July 2015
4604       </div>
4605       <div class="body">
4606         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
4607 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
4608 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
4609 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
4610 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
4611 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
4612 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
4613 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
4614 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
4615 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
4616 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
4617
4618 <p>One tip I got was to use the
4619 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
4620 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
4621 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
4622 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
4623 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
4624 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
4625
4626 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
4627 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
4628 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
4629 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
4630 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
4631 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
4632 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
4633 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
4634 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
4635 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
4636 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
4637 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
4638 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
4639 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
4640 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
4641
4642 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
4643 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
4644 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
4645 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
4646
4647 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
4648 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
4649
4650 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
4651 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
4652 different
4653 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
4654 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
4655
4656       </div>
4657       <div class="tags">
4658
4659
4660         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>.
4661
4662
4663       </div>
4664     </div>
4665     <div class="padding"></div>
4666
4667     <div class="entry">
4668       <div class="title">
4669         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
4670       </div>
4671       <div class="date">
4672          3rd July 2015
4673       </div>
4674       <div class="body">
4675         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
4676 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
4677 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
4678 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
4679 flickering.</p>
4680
4681 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
4682 still as
4683 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
4684 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
4685 good help from
4686 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
4687 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
4688 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
4689 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
4690 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
4691 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
4692 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
4693 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
4694 deteriorated since X41.</p>
4695
4696 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
4697 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
4698 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
4699 have suggestions.</p>
4700
4701 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
4702 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
4703 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
4704
4705       </div>
4706       <div class="tags">
4707
4708
4709         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>.
4710
4711
4712       </div>
4713     </div>
4714     <div class="padding"></div>
4715
4716     <div class="entry">
4717       <div class="title">
4718         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
4719       </div>
4720       <div class="date">
4721         22nd November 2014
4722       </div>
4723       <div class="body">
4724         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
4725 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
4726 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
4727 courtesy of
4728 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
4729 Schubert</a> and
4730 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
4731 McVittie</a>.
4732
4733 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
4734 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
4735 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
4736 you upgrade:</p>
4737
4738 <p><blockquote><pre>
4739 Package: systemd-sysv
4740 Pin: release o=Debian
4741 Pin-Priority: -1
4742 </pre></blockquote><p>
4743
4744 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
4745 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
4746 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
4747 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
4748 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
4749
4750 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
4751 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
4752 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
4753 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
4754 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
4755 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
4756
4757 <p><blockquote><pre>
4758 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
4759 </pre></blockquote><p>
4760
4761 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
4762
4763 <p><blockquote><pre>
4764 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
4765 </pre></blockquote><p>
4766
4767 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
4768 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
4769
4770 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
4771 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
4772 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
4773 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
4774 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
4775 Jessie is released.</p>
4776
4777 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
4778 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
4779 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
4780 line.</p>
4781
4782       </div>
4783       <div class="tags">
4784
4785
4786         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>.
4787
4788
4789       </div>
4790     </div>
4791     <div class="padding"></div>
4792
4793     <div class="entry">
4794       <div class="title">
4795         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
4796       </div>
4797       <div class="date">
4798         10th November 2014
4799       </div>
4800       <div class="body">
4801         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
4802 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
4803 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
4804
4805 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
4806 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
4807 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
4808 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
4809 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
4810 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
4811 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
4812 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
4813 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
4814 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
4815 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
4816 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
4817 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
4818 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
4819 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
4820
4821 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
4822 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
4823 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
4824 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
4825 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
4826 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
4827 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
4828 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
4829 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
4830 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
4831 were fairly easy, and
4832 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
4833 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
4834 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
4835 useful approach.</p>
4836
4837 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
4838 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
4839 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
4840 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
4841 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
4842 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
4843 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
4844 this:</p>
4845
4846 <p><blockquote><pre>
4847 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
4848   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
4849 </pre></blockquote></p>
4850
4851 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
4852 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
4853
4854 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
4855 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
4856 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
4857 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
4858 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
4859 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
4860 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
4861 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
4862 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
4863 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
4864 system.</p>
4865
4866 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
4867 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
4868 SMTorP. :)</p>
4869
4870       </div>
4871       <div class="tags">
4872
4873
4874         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4875
4876
4877       </div>
4878     </div>
4879     <div class="padding"></div>
4880
4881     <div class="entry">
4882       <div class="title">
4883         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
4884       </div>
4885       <div class="date">
4886         22nd October 2014
4887       </div>
4888       <div class="body">
4889         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
4890 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
4891 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
4892 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
4893 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
4894 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
4895 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
4896 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
4897 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
4898 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
4899 lists I recently took over:</p>
4900
4901 <p><blockquote><pre>
4902 % time listadmin xiph
4903 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
4904 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
4905
4906 real    0m1.709s
4907 user    0m0.232s
4908 sys     0m0.012s
4909 %
4910 </pre></blockquote></p>
4911
4912 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
4913 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
4914 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
4915 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
4916 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
4917 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
4918 program.</p>
4919
4920 <p>If you install
4921 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
4922 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
4923 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
4924
4925 <p><blockquote><pre>
4926 username username@example.org
4927 spamlevel 23
4928 default discard
4929 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
4930
4931 password secret
4932 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
4933 mailman-list@lists.example.com
4934
4935 password hidden
4936 other-list@otherserver.example.org
4937 </pre></blockquote></p>
4938
4939 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
4940 learn the details.</p>
4941
4942 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
4943 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
4944 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
4945 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
4946
4947 <p><blockquote><pre>
4948 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
4949 </pre></blockquote></p>
4950
4951 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
4952 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
4953 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
4954 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
4955 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
4956 email.</p>
4957
4958 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
4959 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
4960 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
4961 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
4962 software.</p>
4963
4964 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4965 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4966 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4967
4968 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
4969 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
4970 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
4971 sure why.</p>
4972
4973       </div>
4974       <div class="tags">
4975
4976
4977         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4978
4979
4980       </div>
4981     </div>
4982     <div class="padding"></div>
4983
4984     <div class="entry">
4985       <div class="title">
4986         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="date">
4989         17th October 2014
4990       </div>
4991       <div class="body">
4992         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
4993 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
4994 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
4995 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
4996 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
4997 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
4998 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
4999
5000 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
5001 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
5002 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
5003 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
5004 of this story.)</p>
5005
5006 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
5007 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
5008 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
5009 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
5010 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
5011 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
5012 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
5013 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
5014 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
5015 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
5016
5017 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
5018 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
5019 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
5020 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
5021
5022 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
5023 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
5024
5025 <p><blockquote><pre>
5026 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
5027 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
5028 </pre></blockquote></p>
5029
5030 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
5031 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
5032 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
5033 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
5034 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
5035 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
5036 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
5037 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
5038
5039 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
5040 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
5041
5042 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
5043 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
5044 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
5045 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
5046 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
5047
5048 <p><blockquote><pre>
5049 Task: isenkram-packages
5050 Section: hardware
5051 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
5052  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
5053  proposed.
5054 Test-new-install: show show
5055 Relevance: 8
5056 Packages: for-current-hardware
5057
5058 Task: isenkram-firmware
5059 Section: hardware
5060 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
5061  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
5062  packages are proposed.
5063 Test-new-install: mark show
5064 Relevance: 8
5065 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
5066 </pre></blockquote></p>
5067
5068 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
5069 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
5070 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
5071 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
5072 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
5073
5074 <p><blockquote><pre>
5075 #!/bin/sh
5076 #
5077 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
5078 export PATH
5079 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
5080 </pre></blockquote></p>
5081
5082 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
5083 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
5084
5085 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
5086 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
5087 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
5088 install.</p>
5089
5090 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
5091 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
5092 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
5093
5094       </div>
5095       <div class="tags">
5096
5097
5098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
5099
5100
5101       </div>
5102     </div>
5103     <div class="padding"></div>
5104
5105     <div class="entry">
5106       <div class="title">
5107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
5108       </div>
5109       <div class="date">
5110          4th October 2014
5111       </div>
5112       <div class="body">
5113         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
5114 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
5115 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
5116 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
5117
5118 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
5119
5120 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
5121 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
5122 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
5123
5124       </div>
5125       <div class="tags">
5126
5127
5128         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>.
5129
5130
5131       </div>
5132     </div>
5133     <div class="padding"></div>
5134
5135     <div class="entry">
5136       <div class="title">
5137         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
5138       </div>
5139       <div class="date">
5140          4th October 2014
5141       </div>
5142       <div class="body">
5143         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
5144 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
5145 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
5146 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
5147 Dibb.</p>
5148
5149 <p>I just wrapped up
5150 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
5151 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
5152 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
5153 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
5154 0.17.</p>
5155
5156 <ul>
5157
5158  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
5159  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
5160    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
5161  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
5162  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
5163  <li>Fix include orders</li>
5164  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
5165  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
5166  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
5167    the palette size is the same.</li>
5168  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
5169  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
5170  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
5171  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
5172    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
5173
5174 </ul>
5175
5176 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
5177 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
5178 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
5179
5180       </div>
5181       <div class="tags">
5182
5183
5184         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
5185
5186
5187       </div>
5188     </div>
5189     <div class="padding"></div>
5190
5191     <div class="entry">
5192       <div class="title">
5193         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
5194       </div>
5195       <div class="date">
5196         26th September 2014
5197       </div>
5198       <div class="body">
5199         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5200 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
5201 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
5202 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
5203 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
5204 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
5205 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
5206 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
5207 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
5208 future.  The
5209 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
5210 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
5211 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
5212 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
5213 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
5214
5215 <p>First, download the test ISO via
5216 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
5217 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
5218 or rsync (use
5219 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
5220 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
5221 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
5222 install with some tweaking.</p>
5223
5224 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
5225 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
5226
5227 <p><blockquote><pre>
5228 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
5229 </pre></blockquote></p>
5230
5231 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
5232 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
5233 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
5234 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
5235
5236 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
5237 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
5238 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
5239 your need.</p>
5240
5241 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
5242 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
5243 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
5244 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
5245 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
5246 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
5247 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
5248 days.</p>
5249
5250 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
5251 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
5252 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
5253 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
5254 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
5255 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
5256 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
5257 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
5258 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
5259
5260 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
5261 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
5262 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
5263
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="tags">
5266
5267
5268         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>.
5269
5270
5271       </div>
5272     </div>
5273     <div class="padding"></div>
5274
5275     <div class="entry">
5276       <div class="title">
5277         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
5278       </div>
5279       <div class="date">
5280         25th September 2014
5281       </div>
5282       <div class="body">
5283         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
5284 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
5285 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
5286 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
5287 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
5288 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
5289 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
5290 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
5291 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
5292 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
5293 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
5294 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
5295 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
5296
5297 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
5298 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
5299 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
5300 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
5301 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
5302 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
5303 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
5304 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
5305 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
5306 list</a>. :)</p>
5307
5308       </div>
5309       <div class="tags">
5310
5311
5312         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
5313
5314
5315       </div>
5316     </div>
5317     <div class="padding"></div>
5318
5319     <div class="entry">
5320       <div class="title">
5321         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
5322       </div>
5323       <div class="date">
5324         16th September 2014
5325       </div>
5326       <div class="body">
5327         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
5328 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
5329 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
5330 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
5331 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
5332 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
5333 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
5334 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
5335 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
5336 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
5337 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
5338 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
5339 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
5340 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
5341
5342 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
5343 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
5344 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
5345 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
5346 depend on the small and clever package
5347 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
5348 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
5349 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
5350 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
5351 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
5352 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
5353 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
5354 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
5355 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
5356 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
5357 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
5358
5359 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
5360 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
5361 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
5362 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
5363 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
5364 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
5365 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
5366 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
5367 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
5368 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
5369 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
5370 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
5371 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
5372 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
5373 dialog.</p>
5374
5375 <p><table>
5376
5377 <tr>
5378 <th>Machine/setup</th>
5379 <th>Original tasksel</th>
5380 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
5381 <th>Reduction</th>
5382 </tr>
5383
5384 <tr>
5385 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
5386 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
5387 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
5388 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
5389 </tr>
5390
5391 <tr>
5392 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
5393 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
5394 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
5395 <td>23 min 40%</td>
5396 </tr>
5397
5398 <tr>
5399 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
5400 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
5401 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
5402 <td>11 min 50%</td>
5403 </tr>
5404
5405 <tr>
5406 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
5407 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
5408 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
5409 <td>2 min 33%</td>
5410 </tr>
5411
5412 <tr>
5413 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
5414 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
5415 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
5416 <td>4 min 21%</td>
5417 </tr>
5418
5419 </table></p>
5420
5421 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
5422 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
5423 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
5424 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
5425 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
5426 installed.</p>
5427
5428 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
5429 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
5430 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
5431 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
5432 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
5433 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
5434 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
5435 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
5436 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
5437 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
5438 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
5439 for the entire installation.</p>
5440
5441 <p>I've implemented this in the
5442 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
5443 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
5444 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
5445 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
5446 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
5447
5448 <p><blockquote><pre>
5449 #!/bin/sh
5450 set -e
5451 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
5452 info() {
5453     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
5454 }
5455 error() {
5456     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
5457 }
5458 override_install() {
5459     apt-install eatmydata || true
5460     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
5461         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
5462             file=/usr/bin/$bin
5463             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
5464             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
5465                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
5466                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
5467                     > /target$file.edu
5468                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
5469                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
5470                     --rename --quiet --add $file
5471                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
5472             else
5473                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
5474             fi
5475         done
5476     else
5477         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
5478     fi
5479 }
5480
5481 override_install
5482 </pre></blockquote></p>
5483
5484 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
5485 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
5486
5487 <p><blockquote><pre>
5488 #! /bin/sh -e
5489 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
5490 error() {
5491     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
5492 }
5493 remove_install_override() {
5494     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
5495         file=/usr/bin/$bin
5496         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
5497             rm /target$file
5498             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
5499                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
5500             rm /target$file.edu
5501         else
5502             error "Missing divert for $file."
5503         fi
5504     done
5505     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
5506 }
5507
5508 remove_install_override
5509 </pre></blockquote></p>
5510
5511 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
5512 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
5513 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
5514
5515 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
5516 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
5517 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
5518 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
5519 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
5520 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
5521 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
5522 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
5523 everyone.</p>
5524
5525 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
5526 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
5527 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
5528 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
5529
5530 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
5531 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
5532 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
5533 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
5534 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
5535
5536 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
5537 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
5538 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
5539 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
5540 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
5541
5542       </div>
5543       <div class="tags">
5544
5545
5546         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>.
5547
5548
5549       </div>
5550     </div>
5551     <div class="padding"></div>
5552
5553     <div class="entry">
5554       <div class="title">
5555         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
5556       </div>
5557       <div class="date">
5558         10th September 2014
5559       </div>
5560       <div class="body">
5561         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
5562 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
5563 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
5564 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
5565 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
5566 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
5567 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
5568 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
5569 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
5570 those problems are gone now.</p>
5571
5572 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
5573 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
5574 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
5575 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
5576 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
5577
5578 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
5579 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
5580 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
5581
5582 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
5583 line:</p>
5584
5585 <p><blockquote><pre>
5586 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
5587 </pre></blockquote></p>
5588
5589 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
5590 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
5591 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
5592 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
5593
5594 <p><blockquote><pre>
5595 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
5596 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
5597 %
5598 </pre></blockquote></p>
5599
5600 <p>Now if only
5601 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
5602 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
5603 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
5604 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
5605 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
5606 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
5607 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
5608 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
5609 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
5610
5611       </div>
5612       <div class="tags">
5613
5614
5615         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5616
5617
5618       </div>
5619     </div>
5620     <div class="padding"></div>
5621
5622     <div class="entry">
5623       <div class="title">
5624         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
5625       </div>
5626       <div class="date">
5627         17th June 2014
5628       </div>
5629       <div class="body">
5630         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5631 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
5632 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
5633 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
5634 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
5635
5636 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
5637 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
5638 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
5639 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
5640 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
5641 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
5642 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
5643 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
5644 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
5645 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
5646 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
5647 goals.</p>
5648
5649 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
5650 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
5651 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
5652 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
5653 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
5654 chapters together into one large web page (aka
5655 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
5656 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
5657 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
5658 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
5659 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
5660 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
5661 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
5662 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
5663 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
5664 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
5665 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
5666 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
5667 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
5668 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
5669 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
5670 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
5671 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
5672 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
5673
5674 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
5675 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
5676 track the English original.  For this we use the
5677 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
5678 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
5679 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
5680 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
5681 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
5682 files), which the translations update with the native language
5683 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
5684 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
5685 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
5686 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
5687 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
5688 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
5689 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
5690 of the documentation.</p>
5691
5692 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
5693 recommend using
5694 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
5695 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
5696 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
5697 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
5698 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
5699 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
5700 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
5701 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
5702
5703 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
5704 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
5705 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
5706 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
5707 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
5708 translated images by storing translated versions in
5709 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
5710 package maintainers know more.</p>
5711
5712 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
5713 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
5714 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
5715 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
5716 PDF version</a> or the
5717 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
5718 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
5719 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
5720
5721 <p>To learn more, check out
5722 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
5723 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
5724 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
5725 manual on the wiki</a> and
5726 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
5727 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
5728
5729       </div>
5730       <div class="tags">
5731
5732
5733         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5734
5735
5736       </div>
5737     </div>
5738     <div class="padding"></div>
5739
5740     <div class="entry">
5741       <div class="title">
5742         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
5743       </div>
5744       <div class="date">
5745         23rd April 2014
5746       </div>
5747       <div class="body">
5748         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
5749 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
5750 So I implemented one, using
5751 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
5752 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
5753 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
5754 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
5755 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
5756 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
5757
5758 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
5759 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
5760 packages to install.  The first part is in
5761 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
5762 this:</p>
5763
5764 <p><blockquote><pre>
5765 Task: isenkram
5766 Section: hardware
5767 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
5768  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
5769  proposed.
5770 Test-new-install: mark show
5771 Relevance: 8
5772 Packages: for-current-hardware
5773 </pre></blockquote></p>
5774
5775 <p>The second part is in
5776 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
5777 this:</p>
5778
5779 <p><blockquote><pre>
5780 #!/bin/sh
5781 #
5782 (
5783     isenkram-lookup
5784     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
5785 ) | sort -u
5786 </pre></blockquote></p>
5787
5788 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
5789 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
5790 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
5791 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
5792 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
5793 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
5794
5795 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
5796 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
5797 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
5798 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
5799 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
5800 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
5801 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
5802 the python-apt code (bug
5803 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
5804 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
5805 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
5806 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
5807 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
5808 unstable today.</p>
5809
5810 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
5811 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
5812 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
5813 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
5814 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
5815 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
5816 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
5817 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
5818 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
5819
5820 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
5821 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
5822 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
5823 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
5824 package.  See also
5825 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
5826 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
5827 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
5828 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
5829
5830       </div>
5831       <div class="tags">
5832
5833
5834         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>.
5835
5836
5837       </div>
5838     </div>
5839     <div class="padding"></div>
5840
5841     <div class="entry">
5842       <div class="title">
5843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
5844       </div>
5845       <div class="date">
5846         15th April 2014
5847       </div>
5848       <div class="body">
5849         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
5850 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
5851 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
5852 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
5853 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
5854 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
5855
5856 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
5857 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
5858 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
5859 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
5860 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
5861 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
5862 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
5863
5864 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
5865 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
5866 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
5867 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
5868 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
5869 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
5870 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
5871 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
5872 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
5873 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
5874 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
5875 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
5876
5877 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
5878 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
5879 become root:</p>
5880
5881 <p><pre>
5882 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5883   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5884   u-boot-tools
5885 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5886   freedom-maker
5887 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5888 </pre></p>
5889
5890 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5891 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
5892 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
5893 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
5894 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
5895 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
5896 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
5897 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
5898
5899 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5900 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5901 the preseed values:</p>
5902
5903 <p><pre>
5904 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
5905 </pre></p>
5906
5907 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
5908 it still work.</p>
5909
5910 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
5911 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
5912 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
5913 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
5914 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
5915 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
5916 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
5917
5918 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5919 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5920 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5921 irc.debian.org)</a> and
5922 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5923 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5924
5925       </div>
5926       <div class="tags">
5927
5928
5929         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>.
5930
5931
5932       </div>
5933     </div>
5934     <div class="padding"></div>
5935
5936     <div class="entry">
5937       <div class="title">
5938         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
5939       </div>
5940       <div class="date">
5941          9th April 2014
5942       </div>
5943       <div class="body">
5944         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
5945 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
5946 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
5947 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
5948 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
5949 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
5950 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
5951 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
5952 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
5953 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
5954 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
5955 have looked at a system called
5956 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
5957 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
5958
5959 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
5960 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
5961 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
5962 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
5963 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
5964 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
5965 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
5966 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
5967 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
5968 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
5969 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
5970 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
5971 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
5972
5973 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
5974 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
5975 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
5976 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
5977 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
5978 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
5979 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
5980 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
5981 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
5982 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
5983 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
5984 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
5985 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
5986 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
5987 account.</p>
5988
5989 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
5990 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
5991 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
5992 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
5993 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
5994 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
5995 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
5996
5997 <p><blockquote><pre>
5998 [s3c]
5999 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
6000 backend-login: API-login
6001 backend-password: API-password
6002 fs-passphrase: local-password
6003 </pre></blockquote></p>
6004
6005 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
6006 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
6007 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
6008 details and password to create it:</p>
6009
6010 <p><blockquote><pre>
6011 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
6012 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
6013   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
6014 Enter backend login:
6015 Enter backend password:
6016 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
6017 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
6018 Enter encryption password:
6019 Confirm encryption password:
6020 Generating random encryption key...
6021 Creating metadata tables...
6022 Dumping metadata...
6023 ..objects..
6024 ..blocks..
6025 ..inodes..
6026 ..inode_blocks..
6027 ..symlink_targets..
6028 ..names..
6029 ..contents..
6030 ..ext_attributes..
6031 Compressing and uploading metadata...
6032 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
6033 # </pre></blockquote></p>
6034
6035 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
6036
6037 <p><blockquote><pre>
6038 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
6039   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
6040 Using 4 upload threads.
6041 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
6042 Reading metadata...
6043 ..objects..
6044 ..blocks..
6045 ..inodes..
6046 ..inode_blocks..
6047 ..symlink_targets..
6048 ..names..
6049 ..contents..
6050 ..ext_attributes..
6051 Mounting filesystem...
6052 # df -h /s3ql
6053 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
6054 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
6055 #
6056 </pre></blockquote></p>
6057
6058 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
6059 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
6060 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
6061 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
6062 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
6063 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
6064
6065 <p><blockquote><pre>
6066 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
6067 #
6068 </pre></blockquote></p>
6069
6070 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
6071 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
6072 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
6073 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
6074 file system:</p>
6075
6076 <p><blockquote><pre>
6077 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
6078 Using cached metadata.
6079 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
6080 Checking DB integrity...
6081 Creating temporary extra indices...
6082 Checking lost+found...
6083 Checking cached objects...
6084 Checking names (refcounts)...
6085 Checking contents (names)...
6086 Checking contents (inodes)...
6087 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
6088 Checking objects (reference counts)...
6089 Checking objects (backend)...
6090 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
6091 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
6092 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
6093 Checking objects (sizes)...
6094 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
6095 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
6096 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
6097 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
6098 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
6099 Checking inodes (sizes)...
6100 Checking extended attributes (names)...
6101 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
6102 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
6103 Checking directory reachability...
6104 Checking unix conventions...
6105 Checking referential integrity...
6106 Dropping temporary indices...
6107 Backing up old metadata...
6108 Dumping metadata...
6109 ..objects..
6110 ..blocks..
6111 ..inodes..
6112 ..inode_blocks..
6113 ..symlink_targets..
6114 ..names..
6115 ..contents..
6116 ..ext_attributes..
6117 Compressing and uploading metadata...
6118 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
6119 #
6120 </pre></blockquote></p>
6121
6122 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
6123 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
6124 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
6125 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
6126 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
6127 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
6128 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
6129 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
6130 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
6131 working set.</p>
6132
6133 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
6134 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
6135 busy:</p>
6136
6137 <p><blockquote><pre>
6138 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
6139   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
6140 Using 8 upload threads.
6141 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
6142 #
6143 </pre></blockquote></p>
6144
6145 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
6146 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
6147 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
6148 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
6149 s3qlctrl:
6150
6151 <p><blockquote><pre>
6152 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
6153 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
6154 #
6155 </pre></blockquote></p>
6156
6157 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
6158 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
6159 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
6160 a report:</p>
6161
6162 <p><blockquote><pre>
6163 # s3qlstat /s3ql
6164 Directory entries:    9141
6165 Inodes:               9143
6166 Data blocks:          8851
6167 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
6168 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
6169 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
6170 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
6171 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
6172 #
6173 </pre></blockquote></p>
6174
6175 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
6176 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
6177 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
6178 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
6179 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
6180 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
6181 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
6182 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
6183 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
6184 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
6185 best.</p>
6186
6187 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
6188 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
6189 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
6190 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
6191 poster is titled
6192 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
6193 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
6194 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
6195 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
6196 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
6197
6198 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
6199 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
6200 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
6201 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
6202 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
6203 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
6204 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
6205 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
6206
6207 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
6208 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
6209 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
6210 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
6211 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
6212 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
6213 only read from it.</p>
6214
6215 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6216 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6217 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6218
6219       </div>
6220       <div class="tags">
6221
6222
6223         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/nice free software">nice free software</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>.
6224
6225
6226       </div>
6227     </div>
6228     <div class="padding"></div>
6229
6230     <div class="entry">
6231       <div class="title">
6232         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
6233       </div>
6234       <div class="date">
6235         14th March 2014
6236       </div>
6237       <div class="body">
6238         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
6239 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
6240 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
6241 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
6242 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
6243 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
6244 release (0.2).</p>
6245
6246 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
6247 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
6248 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
6249 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
6250 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
6251 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
6252 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
6253 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
6254 and build using
6255 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
6256 with a user with sudo access to become root:
6257
6258 <pre>
6259 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
6260   freedom-maker
6261 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
6262   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
6263   u-boot-tools
6264 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
6265 </pre>
6266
6267 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
6268 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
6269 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
6270 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
6271 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
6272 kpartx call.</p>
6273
6274 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
6275 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
6276 the preseed values:</p>
6277
6278 <pre>
6279 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
6280 </pre>
6281
6282 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
6283 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
6284 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
6285 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
6286 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
6287 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
6288
6289 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
6290 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
6291 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
6292 irc.debian.org)</a> and
6293 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
6294 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
6295
6296       </div>
6297       <div class="tags">
6298
6299
6300         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>.
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/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
6310       </div>
6311       <div class="date">
6312         22nd February 2014
6313       </div>
6314       <div class="body">
6315         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
6316 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
6317 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
6318 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
6319 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
6320 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
6321 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
6322 proper home since then.</p>
6323
6324 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
6325 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
6326 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
6327 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
6328 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
6329
6330 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
6331 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
6332 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
6333 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
6334 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
6335 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
6336 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
6337 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
6338 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
6339
6340       </div>
6341       <div class="tags">
6342
6343
6344         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>.
6345
6346
6347       </div>
6348     </div>
6349     <div class="padding"></div>
6350
6351     <div class="entry">
6352       <div class="title">
6353         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
6354       </div>
6355       <div class="date">
6356          3rd February 2014
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="body">
6359         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
6360 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
6361 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
6362 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
6363 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
6364 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
6365 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
6366 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
6367 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
6368
6369 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
6370 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
6371 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
6372 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
6373 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
6374 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
6375
6376 <p><blockquote><pre>
6377 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
6378 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
6379 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
6380 dhclient /dev/eth0
6381 </pre></blockquote></p>
6382
6383 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
6384 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
6385 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
6386
6387 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
6388 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
6389 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
6390 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
6391 side.</p>
6392
6393 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
6394 stuff:</p>
6395
6396 <p><blockquote><pre>
6397 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
6398 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
6399 EOF
6400 apt-get update
6401 apt-get dist-upgrade
6402 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
6403     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
6404 update-alternatives --config runsystem
6405 </pre></blockquote></p>
6406
6407 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
6408 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
6409 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
6410 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
6411 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
6412 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
6413 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
6414 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
6415 ssh instead.
6416
6417 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
6418 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
6419 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
6420 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
6421 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
6422 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
6423
6424 <p><blockquote><pre>
6425 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
6426 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
6427 EOF
6428 </pre></blockquote></p>
6429
6430 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
6431 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
6432 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
6433 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
6434
6435 <p><blockquote><pre>
6436 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
6437 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
6438 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
6439 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
6440 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
6441 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
6442 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
6443 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
6444 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
6445 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
6446 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
6447 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
6448 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
6449 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
6450 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
6451 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
6452 #
6453 </pre></blockquote></p>
6454
6455 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
6456 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
6457 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
6458 command line stuff.<p>
6459
6460       </div>
6461       <div class="tags">
6462
6463
6464         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>.
6465
6466
6467       </div>
6468     </div>
6469     <div class="padding"></div>
6470
6471     <div class="entry">
6472       <div class="title">
6473         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
6474       </div>
6475       <div class="date">
6476         14th January 2014
6477       </div>
6478       <div class="body">
6479         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
6480 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
6481 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
6482 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
6483 the source.  The company behind it provide
6484 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
6485 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
6486 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
6487 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
6488 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
6489 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
6490 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
6491 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
6492 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
6493 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
6494 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
6495 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
6496 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
6497 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
6498 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
6499 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
6500 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
6501 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
6502 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
6503
6504 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
6505
6506 <ul>
6507
6508   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
6509   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
6510   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
6511
6512 </ul>
6513
6514 <p>You can
6515 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
6516 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
6517 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
6518 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
6519 include a test suite check.</p>
6520
6521       </div>
6522       <div class="tags">
6523
6524
6525         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6526
6527
6528       </div>
6529     </div>
6530     <div class="padding"></div>
6531
6532     <div class="entry">
6533       <div class="title">
6534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
6535       </div>
6536       <div class="date">
6537         24th November 2013
6538       </div>
6539       <div class="body">
6540         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
6541 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
6542 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
6543 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
6544 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
6545 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
6546 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
6547 is working on.  I checked the
6548 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
6549 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
6550 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
6551 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
6552 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
6553 These are the release notes:</p>
6554
6555 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
6556
6557 <ul>
6558
6559   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
6560    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
6561    up.</li>
6562
6563   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
6564
6565   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
6566    Matthias Klose.</li>
6567
6568   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
6569    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
6570
6571   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
6572    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
6573    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
6574
6575 </ul>
6576
6577 <p>You can
6578 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
6579 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
6580 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
6581 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
6582 include a testsuite check.</p>
6583
6584       </div>
6585       <div class="tags">
6586
6587
6588         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6589
6590
6591       </div>
6592     </div>
6593     <div class="padding"></div>
6594
6595     <div class="entry">
6596       <div class="title">
6597         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
6598       </div>
6599       <div class="date">
6600          2nd November 2013
6601       </div>
6602       <div class="body">
6603         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
6604 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
6605 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
6606 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
6607 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
6608
6609 <p><pre>
6610 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
6611 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
6612 # Provides:          rsyslog
6613 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
6614 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
6615 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
6616 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
6617 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
6618 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
6619 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
6620 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
6621 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
6622 ### END INIT INFO
6623 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
6624 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
6625 </pre></p>
6626
6627 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
6628 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
6629 info/comments.</p>
6630
6631 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
6632 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
6633
6634 <p><pre>
6635 #!/bin/sh
6636
6637 # Define LSB log_* functions.
6638 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
6639 # and status_of_proc is working.
6640 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
6641
6642 #
6643 # Function that starts the daemon/service
6644
6645 #
6646 do_start()
6647 {
6648         # Return
6649         #   0 if daemon has been started
6650         #   1 if daemon was already running
6651         #   2 if daemon could not be started
6652         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
6653                 || return 1
6654         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
6655                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
6656                 || return 2
6657         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
6658         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
6659         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
6660 }
6661
6662 #
6663 # Function that stops the daemon/service
6664 #
6665 do_stop()
6666 {
6667         # Return
6668         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
6669         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
6670         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
6671         #   other if a failure occurred
6672         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
6673         RETVAL="$?"
6674         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
6675         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
6676         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
6677         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
6678         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
6679         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
6680         # sleep for some time.
6681         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
6682         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
6683         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
6684         rm -f $PIDFILE
6685         return "$RETVAL"
6686 }
6687
6688 #
6689 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
6690 #
6691 do_reload() {
6692         #
6693         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
6694         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
6695         # then implement that here.
6696         #
6697         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
6698         return 0
6699 }
6700
6701 SCRIPTNAME=$1
6702 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
6703 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
6704 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
6705     script="$1"
6706     shift
6707     . $script
6708 else
6709     exit 0
6710 fi
6711
6712 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
6713 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
6714
6715 # Exit if the package is not installed
6716 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
6717
6718 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
6719 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
6720
6721 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
6722 . /lib/init/vars.sh
6723
6724 case "$1" in
6725   start)
6726         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
6727         do_start
6728         case "$?" in
6729                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
6730                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
6731         esac
6732         ;;
6733   stop)
6734         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
6735         do_stop
6736         case "$?" in
6737                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
6738                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
6739         esac
6740         ;;
6741   status)
6742         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
6743         ;;
6744   #reload|force-reload)
6745         #
6746         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
6747         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
6748         #
6749         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
6750         #do_reload
6751         #log_end_msg $?
6752         #;;
6753   restart|force-reload)
6754         #
6755         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
6756         # 'force-reload' alias
6757         #
6758         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
6759         do_stop
6760         case "$?" in
6761           0|1)
6762                 do_start
6763                 case "$?" in
6764                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
6765                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
6766                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
6767                 esac
6768                 ;;
6769           *)
6770                 # Failed to stop
6771                 log_end_msg 1
6772                 ;;
6773         esac
6774         ;;
6775   *)
6776         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
6777         exit 3
6778         ;;
6779 esac
6780
6781 :
6782 </pre></p>
6783
6784 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
6785 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
6786 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
6787 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
6788
6789 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
6790 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
6791 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
6792 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
6793 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
6794
6795       </div>
6796       <div class="tags">
6797
6798
6799         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>.
6800
6801
6802       </div>
6803     </div>
6804     <div class="padding"></div>
6805
6806     <div class="entry">
6807       <div class="title">
6808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
6809       </div>
6810       <div class="date">
6811          1st November 2013
6812       </div>
6813       <div class="body">
6814         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
6815 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
6816 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
6817 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
6818 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
6819 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
6820 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
6821 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
6822 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
6823 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
6824 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
6825 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
6826
6827 <p>The source is now available from
6828 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
6829
6830       </div>
6831       <div class="tags">
6832
6833
6834         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>.
6835
6836
6837       </div>
6838     </div>
6839     <div class="padding"></div>
6840
6841     <div class="entry">
6842       <div class="title">
6843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
6844       </div>
6845       <div class="date">
6846         27th October 2013
6847       </div>
6848       <div class="body">
6849         <p>The
6850 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
6851 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
6852 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
6853 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
6854 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
6855 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
6856 of a plan to simplify the build system for
6857 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
6858 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
6859 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
6860 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
6861 Raspberry Pi.</p>
6862
6863 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
6864 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
6865 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
6866 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
6867 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
6868 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
6869 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
6870 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
6871 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
6872 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
6873 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
6874 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
6875 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
6876 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
6877 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
6878 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
6879 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
6880 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
6881 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
6882 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
6883 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
6884 available from
6885 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
6886 upstream project page</a>.</p>
6887
6888 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
6889 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
6890 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
6891 list:</p>
6892
6893 <p><pre>
6894 #!/bin/sh
6895 set -e # Exit on first error
6896 rootdir="$1"
6897 cd "$rootdir"
6898 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
6899 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
6900 EOF
6901 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
6902 # install a kernel somewhere too.
6903 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
6904     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6905 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6906 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
6907 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
6908 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
6909 </pre></p>
6910
6911 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
6912 to build the image:</p>
6913
6914 <pre>
6915 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
6916     --variant minbase \
6917     --arch armel \
6918     --distribution jessie \
6919     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
6920     --image test.img \
6921     --size 600M \
6922     --bootsize 64M \
6923     --boottype vfat \
6924     --log-level debug \
6925     --verbose \
6926     --no-kernel \
6927     --no-extlinux \
6928     --root-password raspberry \
6929     --hostname raspberrypi \
6930     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
6931     --customize `pwd`/customize \
6932     --package netbase \
6933     --package git-core \
6934     --package binutils \
6935     --package ca-certificates \
6936     --package wget \
6937     --package kmod
6938 </pre></p>
6939
6940 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
6941 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
6942 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
6943 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
6944 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
6945 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
6946 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
6947
6948 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
6949 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
6950 build dependency list.</p>
6951
6952 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
6953 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
6954 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
6955 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
6956
6957       </div>
6958       <div class="tags">
6959
6960
6961         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
6962
6963
6964       </div>
6965     </div>
6966     <div class="padding"></div>
6967
6968     <div class="entry">
6969       <div class="title">
6970         <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>
6971       </div>
6972       <div class="date">
6973         15th October 2013
6974       </div>
6975       <div class="body">
6976         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
6977 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
6978 these. :)</p>
6979
6980 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
6981 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
6982 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
6983 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
6984 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
6985 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
6986 hope you will to. :)</p>
6987
6988 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
6989 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
6990 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
6991 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
6992 donated.  Are you next?</p>
6993
6994 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
6995 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
6996 statement under the heading
6997 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
6998 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
6999 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
7000 too.</p>
7001
7002       </div>
7003       <div class="tags">
7004
7005
7006         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>.
7007
7008
7009       </div>
7010     </div>
7011     <div class="padding"></div>
7012
7013     <div class="entry">
7014       <div class="title">
7015         <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>
7016       </div>
7017       <div class="date">
7018         27th September 2013
7019       </div>
7020       <div class="body">
7021         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
7022 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
7023 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
7024 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
7025
7026 <ul>
7027
7028 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
7029 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
7030
7031 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
7032 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
7033
7034 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
7035 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
7036 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
7037 (Youtube)</li>
7038
7039 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
7040 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
7041
7042 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
7043 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
7044
7045 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
7046 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
7047 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
7048
7049 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
7050 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
7051 (Youtube)</li>
7052
7053 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
7054 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
7055
7056 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
7057 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
7058
7059 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
7060 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
7061 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
7062
7063 </ul>
7064
7065 <p>A larger list is available from
7066 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
7067 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
7068
7069 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
7070 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
7071 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
7072 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
7073 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
7074 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
7075 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
7076 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
7077 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
7078 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7079 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7080
7081       </div>
7082       <div class="tags">
7083
7084
7085         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>.
7086
7087
7088       </div>
7089     </div>
7090     <div class="padding"></div>
7091
7092     <div class="entry">
7093       <div class="title">
7094         <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>
7095       </div>
7096       <div class="date">
7097         10th September 2013
7098       </div>
7099       <div class="body">
7100         <p>I was introduced to the
7101 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
7102 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
7103 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
7104 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
7105 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
7106 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
7107 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
7108 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
7109
7110 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
7111 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
7112 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
7113 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
7114 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
7115
7116 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
7117 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
7118 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
7119 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
7120 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
7121 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
7122 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
7123 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
7124 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
7125 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
7126 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
7127 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
7128 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
7129 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
7130 missing in Debian).</p>
7131
7132 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
7133 scripts
7134 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
7135 and a administrative web interface
7136 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
7137 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
7138 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
7139 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
7140 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
7141 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
7142 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
7143 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
7144 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
7145 this is really working yet, see
7146 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
7147 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
7148 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
7149 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
7150 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
7151 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
7152 with lots of half baked features.</p>
7153
7154 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
7155 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
7156 at.</p>
7157
7158 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
7159
7160 <ol>
7161
7162 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
7163 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
7164 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
7165 to the Debian installer:<p>
7166 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
7167
7168 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
7169 install on.</li>
7170
7171 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
7172 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
7173
7174 </ol>
7175
7176 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
7177
7178 <ol>
7179
7180 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
7181 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
7182 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
7183 <pre>
7184 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
7185 </pre></li>
7186 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
7187 <pre>
7188 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
7189    apt-key add -
7190 apt-get update
7191 apt-get install freedombox-setup
7192 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
7193 </pre></li>
7194 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
7195
7196 </ol>
7197
7198 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
7199 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
7200 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
7201 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
7202 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
7203
7204 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
7205 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
7206 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
7207 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
7208
7209 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
7210 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
7211 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
7212 irc.debian.org and the
7213 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
7214 mailing list</a>.</p>
7215
7216 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
7217 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
7218 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
7219 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
7220 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
7221 default password is 'secret'.</p>
7222
7223       </div>
7224       <div class="tags">
7225
7226
7227         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>.
7228
7229
7230       </div>
7231     </div>
7232     <div class="padding"></div>
7233
7234     <div class="entry">
7235       <div class="title">
7236         <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>
7237       </div>
7238       <div class="date">
7239         18th August 2013
7240       </div>
7241       <div class="body">
7242         <p>Earlier, I reported about
7243 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
7244 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
7245 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
7246 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
7247 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
7248 currently on the disk.</p>
7249
7250 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
7251 <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>
7252 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
7253 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
7254 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
7255 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
7256 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
7257 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
7258 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
7259 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
7260 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
7261 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
7262 the broken disks.</p>
7263
7264       </div>
7265       <div class="tags">
7266
7267
7268         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>.
7269
7270
7271       </div>
7272     </div>
7273     <div class="padding"></div>
7274
7275     <div class="entry">
7276       <div class="title">
7277         <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>
7278       </div>
7279       <div class="date">
7280         17th July 2013
7281       </div>
7282       <div class="body">
7283         <p>Today I switched to
7284 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
7285 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
7286 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
7287 <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
7288 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
7289 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
7290 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
7291 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
7292 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
7293 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
7294 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
7295 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
7296 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
7297 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
7298 station from now on.</p>
7299
7300 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
7301 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
7302 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
7303 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
7304 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
7305 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
7306 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
7307 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
7308 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
7309 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
7310 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
7311 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
7312
7313 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
7314 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
7315 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
7316 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
7317 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
7318 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
7319 parameters are tuned:</p>
7320
7321 <ul>
7322
7323 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
7324     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
7325
7326 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
7327     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
7328     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
7329
7330 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
7331     systems.</li>
7332
7333 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
7334     /etc/fstab.</li>
7335
7336 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
7337
7338 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
7339     cron.daily).</li>
7340
7341 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
7342     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
7343
7344 </ul>
7345
7346 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
7347 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
7348 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
7349 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
7350 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
7351 from getting the data on the disk (see
7352 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
7353 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
7354 right thing to do.</p>
7355
7356 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
7357 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
7358 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
7359
7360 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
7361 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
7362 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
7363 instead of during my work.</p>
7364
7365 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
7366 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
7367
7368 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
7369 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
7370 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
7371
7372 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
7373 there.</p>
7374
7375 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
7376 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
7377 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
7378 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
7379 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
7380 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
7381 back.</p>
7382
7383       </div>
7384       <div class="tags">
7385
7386
7387         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>.
7388
7389
7390       </div>
7391     </div>
7392     <div class="padding"></div>
7393
7394     <div class="entry">
7395       <div class="title">
7396         <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>
7397       </div>
7398       <div class="date">
7399         10th July 2013
7400       </div>
7401       <div class="body">
7402         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
7403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
7404 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
7405 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
7406 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
7407 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
7408 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
7409 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
7410
7411 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
7412 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
7413 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
7414 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
7415 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
7416 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
7417 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
7418 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
7419 lock up when I download a new
7420 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
7421 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
7422 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
7423
7424 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
7425 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
7426 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
7427 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
7428 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
7429 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
7430
7431 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
7432 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
7433 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
7434 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
7435 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
7436 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
7437
7438 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
7439 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
7440 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
7441 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
7442 exist).</p>
7443
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="tags">
7446
7447
7448         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>.
7449
7450
7451       </div>
7452     </div>
7453     <div class="padding"></div>
7454
7455     <div class="entry">
7456       <div class="title">
7457         <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>
7458       </div>
7459       <div class="date">
7460          9th July 2013
7461       </div>
7462       <div class="body">
7463         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
7464 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
7465 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
7466 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
7467 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7468 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
7469 Bitraf</a>.</p>
7470
7471 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
7472 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
7473 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
7474 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
7475 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
7476
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="tags">
7479
7480
7481         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>.
7482
7483
7484       </div>
7485     </div>
7486     <div class="padding"></div>
7487
7488     <div class="entry">
7489       <div class="title">
7490         <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>
7491       </div>
7492       <div class="date">
7493          5th July 2013
7494       </div>
7495       <div class="body">
7496         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
7497 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
7498 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
7499 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
7500 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
7501 ended up picking a
7502 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
7503 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
7504 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
7505 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
7506 on that below.</p>
7507
7508 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
7509 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
7510 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
7511 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
7512 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
7513 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
7514 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
7515 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
7516 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
7517
7518 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
7519 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
7520 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
7521 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
7522 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
7523 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
7524 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
7525
7526 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
7527 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
7528
7529 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
7530 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
7531 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
7532 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
7533 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
7534 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
7535 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
7536 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
7537 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
7538 kernel developers as
7539 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
7540 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
7541 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
7542 Lenovo forums, both for
7543 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
7544 2012-11-10</a> and for
7545 <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
7546 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
7547 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
7548 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
7549 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
7550 There is even a
7551 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
7552 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
7553 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
7554
7555 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
7556 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
7557 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
7558 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
7559 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
7560 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
7561 fixed. :)</p>
7562
7563       </div>
7564       <div class="tags">
7565
7566
7567         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>.
7568
7569
7570       </div>
7571     </div>
7572     <div class="padding"></div>
7573
7574     <div class="entry">
7575       <div class="title">
7576         <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>
7577       </div>
7578       <div class="date">
7579          4th July 2013
7580       </div>
7581       <div class="body">
7582         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
7583 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
7584 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
7585 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
7586 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
7587 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
7588 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
7589 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
7590 with an expencive door stop.</p>
7591
7592 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
7593 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
7594 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
7595 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
7596 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
7597 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
7598 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
7599
7600 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
7601 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
7602 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
7603 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
7604 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
7605 new laptop now. :)</p>
7606
7607 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
7608
7609       </div>
7610       <div class="tags">
7611
7612
7613         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>.
7614
7615
7616       </div>
7617     </div>
7618     <div class="padding"></div>
7619
7620     <div class="entry">
7621       <div class="title">
7622         <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>
7623       </div>
7624       <div class="date">
7625         25th June 2013
7626       </div>
7627       <div class="body">
7628         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
7629 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
7630 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
7631 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
7632 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
7633 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
7634 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
7635 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
7636 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
7637 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
7638 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
7639
7640 <p><pre>
7641 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
7642 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
7643 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
7644 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
7645 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
7646 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
7647 firmware-ipw2x00
7648 firmware-ipw2x00
7649 Preconfiguring packages ...
7650 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
7651 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
7652 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
7653 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
7654 #
7655 </pre></p>
7656
7657 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
7658 printed instead:</p>
7659
7660 <p><pre>
7661 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
7662 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
7663 #
7664 </pre></p>
7665
7666 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
7667 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
7668
7669 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
7670 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
7671 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
7672 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
7673 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
7674 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
7675 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
7676 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
7677 machine.</p>
7678
7679 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
7680 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
7681 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
7682 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
7683 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
7684 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
7685
7686       </div>
7687       <div class="tags">
7688
7689
7690         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>.
7691
7692
7693       </div>
7694     </div>
7695     <div class="padding"></div>
7696
7697     <div class="entry">
7698       <div class="title">
7699         <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>
7700       </div>
7701       <div class="date">
7702         11th June 2013
7703       </div>
7704       <div class="body">
7705         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
7706 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
7707 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
7708 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
7709 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
7710 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
7711 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
7712 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
7713 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
7714 i915 driver used by the
7715 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
7716 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
7717
7718 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
7719 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
7720 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
7721 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
7722 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
7723
7724 <pre>
7725 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
7726 update-initramfs -u -k all
7727 </pre>
7728
7729 <p>Since March 2012 there is
7730 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
7731 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
7732 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
7733 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
7734 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
7735 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
7736 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
7737 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
7738 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
7739 number.</p>
7740
7741 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
7742 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
7743
7744 <p><pre>
7745 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
7746     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
7747     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
7748  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
7749  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
7750     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
7751  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
7752     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
7753  Latency: 0
7754  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
7755  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
7756  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
7757  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
7758  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
7759  Capabilities: <access denied>
7760  Kernel driver in use: i915
7761 </pre></p>
7762
7763 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
7764
7765 <p><pre>
7766 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
7767        ...
7768         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
7769         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
7770        ...
7771 }
7772 </pre></p>
7773
7774 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
7775 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
7776 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
7777 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
7778 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
7779 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
7780 yet shown up in
7781 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
7782 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
7783 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
7784 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
7785 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
7786 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
7787
7788 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
7789 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
7790 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
7791 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
7792 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
7793 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
7794 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
7795 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
7796 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
7797 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
7798 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
7799 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
7800
7801 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
7802 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
7803 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
7804 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
7805 backlight.</p>
7806
7807       </div>
7808       <div class="tags">
7809
7810
7811         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>.
7812
7813
7814       </div>
7815     </div>
7816     <div class="padding"></div>
7817
7818     <div class="entry">
7819       <div class="title">
7820         <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>
7821       </div>
7822       <div class="date">
7823         27th May 2013
7824       </div>
7825       <div class="body">
7826         <p>Two days ago, I asked
7827 <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
7828 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
7829 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
7830 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
7831 and Windows 8.</p>
7832
7833 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
7834 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
7835 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
7836 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
7837 enough to tell.</p>
7838
7839 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
7840 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
7841 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
7842 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
7843 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
7844 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
7845 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
7846 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
7847 to follow.</p>
7848
7849 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
7850 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
7851 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
7852 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
7853 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
7854 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
7855 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
7856 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
7857
7858 <p>I've updated the
7859 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
7860 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
7861 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
7862 machine.</p>
7863
7864 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
7865 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
7866
7867       </div>
7868       <div class="tags">
7869
7870
7871         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>.
7872
7873
7874       </div>
7875     </div>
7876     <div class="padding"></div>
7877
7878     <div class="entry">
7879       <div class="title">
7880         <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>
7881       </div>
7882       <div class="date">
7883         25th May 2013
7884       </div>
7885       <div class="body">
7886         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
7887 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
7888 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
7889 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
7890 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
7891 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
7892
7893 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
7894 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
7895 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
7896 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
7897 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
7898 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
7899 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
7900 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
7901 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
7902 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
7903
7904 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
7905 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
7906 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
7907 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
7908 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
7909 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
7910
7911 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
7912 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
7913 on new Laptops?</p>
7914
7915       </div>
7916       <div class="tags">
7917
7918
7919         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>.
7920
7921
7922       </div>
7923     </div>
7924     <div class="padding"></div>
7925
7926     <div class="entry">
7927       <div class="title">
7928         <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>
7929       </div>
7930       <div class="date">
7931         17th May 2013
7932       </div>
7933       <div class="body">
7934         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
7935 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
7936 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
7937 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
7938 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
7939 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
7940 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
7941 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
7942 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
7943 donate some money</a>.
7944
7945 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
7946 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
7947 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
7948 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
7949 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
7950
7951 <p>The script,
7952 <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/>
7953 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
7954 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
7955 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
7956
7957 <ol>
7958
7959 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
7960 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
7961 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
7962     our configuration.</li>
7963 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
7964     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
7965     according to the profile specified in the config above,
7966     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
7967 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
7968     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
7969 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
7970
7971 </ol>
7972
7973 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
7974 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
7975 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
7976 the needed packages.</p>
7977
7978 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
7979 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
7980 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
7981 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
7982 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
7983 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
7984
7985 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
7986 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
7987 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
7988
7989 <p><pre>
7990 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
7991 DESKTOP="lxde"
7992 </pre></p>
7993
7994 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
7995 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
7996 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
7997 boot.</p>
7998
7999       </div>
8000       <div class="tags">
8001
8002
8003         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>.
8004
8005
8006       </div>
8007     </div>
8008     <div class="padding"></div>
8009
8010     <div class="entry">
8011       <div class="title">
8012         <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>
8013       </div>
8014       <div class="date">
8015         11th May 2013
8016       </div>
8017       <div class="body">
8018         <P>In January,
8019 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
8020 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
8021 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
8022 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
8023 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
8024 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
8025 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
8026 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
8027 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
8028 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
8029 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
8030 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
8031
8032 <p><table>
8033 <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>
8034 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
8035 <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>
8036 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
8037 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
8038 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
8039 <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>
8040 <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>
8041 <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>
8042 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
8043 </table></p>
8044
8045 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
8046 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
8047 available in experimental.</p>
8048
8049 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
8050 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
8051 for LEGO designers.</p>
8052
8053       </div>
8054       <div class="tags">
8055
8056
8057         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/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
8058
8059
8060       </div>
8061     </div>
8062     <div class="padding"></div>
8063
8064     <div class="entry">
8065       <div class="title">
8066         <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>
8067       </div>
8068       <div class="date">
8069          5th May 2013
8070       </div>
8071       <div class="body">
8072         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
8073 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
8074 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
8075 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
8076 soon.</p>
8077
8078 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
8079 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
8080 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
8081 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
8082 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
8083 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
8084 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
8085 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
8086 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
8087 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
8088 Edu.</a>
8089
8090 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
8091 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
8092 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
8093 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
8094 follow.<p>
8095
8096       </div>
8097       <div class="tags">
8098
8099
8100         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>.
8101
8102
8103       </div>
8104     </div>
8105     <div class="padding"></div>
8106
8107     <div class="entry">
8108       <div class="title">
8109         <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>
8110       </div>
8111       <div class="date">
8112          3rd April 2013
8113       </div>
8114       <div class="body">
8115         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
8116 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
8117 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
8118 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
8119
8120 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
8121 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
8122 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
8123 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
8124 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
8125 BTS. :)</p>
8126
8127       </div>
8128       <div class="tags">
8129
8130
8131         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>.
8132
8133
8134       </div>
8135     </div>
8136     <div class="padding"></div>
8137
8138     <div class="entry">
8139       <div class="title">
8140         <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>
8141       </div>
8142       <div class="date">
8143          2nd February 2013
8144       </div>
8145       <div class="body">
8146         <p>My
8147 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
8148 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
8149 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
8150 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
8151 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
8152 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
8153 version too.</p>
8154
8155 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
8156 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
8157 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
8158 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
8159 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
8160 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
8161 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
8162 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
8163
8164 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
8165 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
8166 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
8167 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
8168 it. :)</p>
8169
8170 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8171 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8172 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8173
8174       </div>
8175       <div class="tags">
8176
8177
8178         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>.
8179
8180
8181       </div>
8182     </div>
8183     <div class="padding"></div>
8184
8185     <div class="entry">
8186       <div class="title">
8187         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
8188       </div>
8189       <div class="date">
8190         22nd January 2013
8191       </div>
8192       <div class="body">
8193         <p>Yesterday, I
8194 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
8195 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
8196 pluggable hardware devices, which I
8197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
8198 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
8199 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
8200 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
8201 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
8202 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
8203 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
8204 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
8205 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
8206 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
8207
8208 <pre>
8209 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
8210 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
8211 </pre>
8212
8213 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
8214 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
8215 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
8216 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
8217
8218 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
8219 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
8220 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
8221 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
8222 word.</p>
8223
8224 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
8225 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
8226 process.</p>
8227
8228 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
8229 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
8230
8231       </div>
8232       <div class="tags">
8233
8234
8235         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>.
8236
8237
8238       </div>
8239     </div>
8240     <div class="padding"></div>
8241
8242     <div class="entry">
8243       <div class="title">
8244         <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>
8245       </div>
8246       <div class="date">
8247         21st January 2013
8248       </div>
8249       <div class="body">
8250         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
8251 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
8252 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
8253 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
8254 it, fetch the
8255 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
8256 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
8257 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
8258 autostart script.</p>
8259
8260 <p>The design is simple:</p>
8261
8262 <ul>
8263
8264 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
8265 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
8266
8267 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
8268 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
8269 initially did.</li>
8270
8271 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
8272 the APT database, a database
8273 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
8274 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
8275
8276 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
8277 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
8278 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
8279 package or packages.</li>
8280
8281 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
8282 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
8283
8284 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
8285 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
8286
8287 </ul>
8288
8289 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
8290 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
8291 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
8292 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
8293
8294 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
8295 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
8296 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
8297 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
8298 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
8299
8300 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
8301 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
8302 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
8303 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
8304 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
8305 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
8306 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
8307 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
8308
8309 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
8310 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
8311 '<tt>svn checkout
8312 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
8313 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
8314 devscripts package.</p>
8315
8316 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
8317 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
8318 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
8319 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
8320 instructions</a> for details.</p>
8321
8322       </div>
8323       <div class="tags">
8324
8325
8326         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>.
8327
8328
8329       </div>
8330     </div>
8331     <div class="padding"></div>
8332
8333     <div class="entry">
8334       <div class="title">
8335         <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>
8336       </div>
8337       <div class="date">
8338         19th January 2013
8339       </div>
8340       <div class="body">
8341         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
8342 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
8343 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
8344 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
8345 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
8346 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
8347 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
8348 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
8349 not a durable solution.
8350
8351 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
8352 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
8353
8354 <ul>
8355
8356 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
8357   than A4).</li>
8358 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
8359 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
8360 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
8361 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
8362 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
8363 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
8364 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
8365 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
8366 size).</li>
8367 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
8368   X.org packages.</li>
8369 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
8370   the time).
8371
8372 </ul>
8373
8374 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
8375 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
8376 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
8377 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
8378 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
8379 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
8380 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
8381 still be useful.</p>
8382
8383 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
8384 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
8385 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
8386 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
8387 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
8388 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
8389
8390       </div>
8391       <div class="tags">
8392
8393
8394         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>.
8395
8396
8397       </div>
8398     </div>
8399     <div class="padding"></div>
8400
8401     <div class="entry">
8402       <div class="title">
8403         <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>
8404       </div>
8405       <div class="date">
8406         18th January 2013
8407       </div>
8408       <div class="body">
8409         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
8410 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
8411 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
8412 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
8413 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
8414 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
8415 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
8416
8417 <pre>
8418 #!/usr/bin/python
8419 import sys
8420 import apt
8421 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8422     cache = apt.Cache()
8423     cache.open(None)
8424     thepkgs = []
8425     for pkg in cache:
8426         version = pkg.candidate
8427         if version is None:
8428             version = pkg.installed
8429         if version is None:
8430             continue
8431         record = version.record
8432         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
8433             continue
8434         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
8435         for t in mime_types:
8436             t = t.rstrip().strip()
8437             if t == mimetype:
8438                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
8439     return thepkgs
8440 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
8441 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
8442     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
8443 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
8444 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
8445     print "  %s" %pkg
8446 </pre>
8447
8448 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
8449
8450 <pre>
8451 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
8452 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
8453   gecko-mediaplayer
8454 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
8455 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
8456   browser-plugin-gnash
8457 %
8458 </pre>
8459
8460 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
8461 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
8462 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
8463 anyone working on adding it?</p>
8464
8465 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
8466 request for icweasel support for this feature is
8467 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
8468 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
8469 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
8470 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
8471
8472       </div>
8473       <div class="tags">
8474
8475
8476         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>.
8477
8478
8479       </div>
8480     </div>
8481     <div class="padding"></div>
8482
8483     <div class="entry">
8484       <div class="title">
8485         <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>
8486       </div>
8487       <div class="date">
8488         16th January 2013
8489       </div>
8490       <div class="body">
8491         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
8492 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
8493 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
8494 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
8495 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
8496 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
8497 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
8498 downloaded by the browser.</p>
8499
8500 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
8501 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
8502 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
8503 can be found on the
8504 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
8505 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
8506 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
8507 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
8508 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
8509
8510 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
8511
8512 <pre>
8513   count MIME type
8514   ----- -----------------------
8515      32 text/plain
8516      30 audio/mpeg
8517      29 image/png
8518      28 image/jpeg
8519      27 application/ogg
8520      26 audio/x-mp3
8521      25 image/tiff
8522      25 image/gif
8523      22 image/bmp
8524      22 audio/x-wav
8525      20 audio/x-flac
8526      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8527      18 video/x-ms-asf
8528      18 audio/x-musepack
8529      18 audio/x-mpeg
8530      18 application/x-ogg
8531      17 video/mpeg
8532      17 audio/x-scpls
8533      17 audio/ogg
8534      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8535 </pre>
8536
8537 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
8538
8539 <pre>
8540   count MIME type
8541   ----- -----------------------
8542      33 text/plain
8543      32 image/png
8544      32 image/jpeg
8545      29 audio/mpeg
8546      27 image/gif
8547      26 image/tiff
8548      26 application/ogg
8549      25 audio/x-mp3
8550      22 image/bmp
8551      21 audio/x-wav
8552      19 audio/x-mpegurl
8553      19 audio/x-mpeg
8554      18 video/mpeg
8555      18 audio/x-scpls
8556      18 audio/x-flac
8557      18 application/x-ogg
8558      17 video/x-ms-asf
8559      17 text/html
8560      17 audio/x-musepack
8561      16 image/x-xbitmap
8562 </pre>
8563
8564 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
8565
8566 <pre>
8567   count MIME type
8568   ----- -----------------------
8569      31 text/plain
8570      31 image/png
8571      31 image/jpeg
8572      29 audio/mpeg
8573      28 application/ogg
8574      27 image/gif
8575      26 image/tiff
8576      26 audio/x-mp3
8577      23 audio/x-wav
8578      22 image/bmp
8579      21 audio/x-flac
8580      20 audio/x-mpegurl
8581      19 audio/x-mpeg
8582      18 video/x-ms-asf
8583      18 video/mpeg
8584      18 audio/x-scpls
8585      18 application/x-ogg
8586      17 audio/x-musepack
8587      16 video/x-ms-wmv
8588      16 video/x-msvideo
8589 </pre>
8590
8591 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
8592 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
8593 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
8594 issues.</p>
8595
8596 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
8597 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
8598
8599       </div>
8600       <div class="tags">
8601
8602
8603         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>.
8604
8605
8606       </div>
8607     </div>
8608     <div class="padding"></div>
8609
8610     <div class="entry">
8611       <div class="title">
8612         <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>
8613       </div>
8614       <div class="date">
8615         15th January 2013
8616       </div>
8617       <div class="body">
8618         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
8619 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
8620 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
8621 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
8622 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
8623 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
8624 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
8625 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
8626 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
8627 packages.</p>
8628
8629 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
8630 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
8631 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
8632 modalias.</p>
8633
8634 <p><blockquote>
8635 Package: package-name
8636 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
8637 </blockquote></p>
8638
8639 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
8640 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
8641
8642 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
8643 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
8644
8645 <p><blockquote>
8646 Package: cheese
8647 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
8648 </blockquote></p>
8649
8650 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
8651 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
8652
8653 <p><blockquote>
8654 Package: pcmciautils
8655 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
8656 </blockquote></p>
8657
8658 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
8659 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
8660
8661 <p><blockquote>
8662 Package: colorhug-client
8663 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
8664 </blockquote></p>
8665
8666 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
8667 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
8668 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
8669
8670 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
8671 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
8672 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
8673 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
8674 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
8675 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
8676 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
8677 Raring.</p>
8678
8679 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
8680 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
8681 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
8682 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
8683 try the
8684 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
8685 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
8686 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
8687 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
8688
8689 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
8690 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
8691
8692 <p><blockquote>
8693 % ./hw-support-lookup
8694 <br>yubikey-personalization
8695 <br>%
8696 </blockquote></p>
8697
8698 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
8699 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
8700
8701 <p><blockquote>
8702 % ./hw-support-lookup
8703 <br>pcmciautils
8704 <br>%
8705 </blockquote></p>
8706
8707 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
8708 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
8709 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
8710
8711 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
8712 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
8713 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
8714 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
8715 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
8716 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
8717 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
8718 see if it work.</p>
8719
8720 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8721 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8722 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8723 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8724
8725       </div>
8726       <div class="tags">
8727
8728
8729         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>.
8730
8731
8732       </div>
8733     </div>
8734     <div class="padding"></div>
8735
8736     <div class="entry">
8737       <div class="title">
8738         <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>
8739       </div>
8740       <div class="date">
8741         14th January 2013
8742       </div>
8743       <div class="body">
8744         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
8745 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
8746 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
8747 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
8748 in
8749 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
8750 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
8751
8752 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
8753
8754 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
8755 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
8756 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
8757 &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;,
8758 &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
8759 &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;.
8760
8761 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
8762 this shell script:</p>
8763
8764 <pre>
8765 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
8766 </pre>
8767
8768 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
8769 using modinfo:</p>
8770
8771 <pre>
8772 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
8773 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
8774 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
8775 %
8776 </pre>
8777
8778 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
8779
8780 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
8781 Bridge memory controller:</p>
8782
8783 <p><blockquote>
8784 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
8785 </blockquote></p>
8786
8787 <p>This represent these values:</p>
8788
8789 <pre>
8790  v   00008086  (vendor)
8791  d   00002770  (device)
8792  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
8793  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
8794  bc  06        (bus class)
8795  sc  00        (bus subclass)
8796  i   00        (interface)
8797 </pre>
8798
8799 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
8800 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
8801 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
8802 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
8803
8804 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
8805 means.</p>
8806
8807 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
8808
8809 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
8810 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
8811
8812 <p><blockquote>
8813 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
8814 </blockquote></p>
8815
8816 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
8817
8818 <pre>
8819  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
8820  p    0001  (device product)
8821  d    0206  (bcddevice)
8822  dc     09  (device class)
8823  dsc    00  (device subclass)
8824  dp     00  (device protocol)
8825  ic     09  (interface class)
8826  isc    00  (interface subclass)
8827  ip     00  (interface protocol)
8828 </pre>
8829
8830 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
8831 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
8832 these alias entries show up:</p>
8833
8834 <p><blockquote>
8835 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
8836 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
8837 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
8838 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
8839 </blockquote></p>
8840
8841 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
8842 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
8843 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
8844
8845 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
8846
8847 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
8848 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
8849
8850 <p><blockquote>
8851 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8852 </blockquote></p>
8853
8854 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
8855
8856 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
8857
8858 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
8859 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
8860 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
8861
8862 <p><blockquote>
8863 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
8864 </blockquote></p>
8865
8866 <p>The values present are</p>
8867
8868 <pre>
8869  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
8870  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
8871  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
8872  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
8873  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
8874  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
8875  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
8876  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
8877  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
8878  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
8879  ct   10             (chassis type)
8880  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
8881 </pre>
8882
8883 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
8884 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
8885
8886 <pre>
8887   3 Desktop
8888   4 Low Profile Desktop
8889   5 Pizza Box
8890   6 Mini Tower
8891   7 Tower
8892   8 Portable
8893   9 Laptop
8894  10 Notebook
8895  11 Hand Held
8896  12 Docking Station
8897  13 All In One
8898  14 Sub Notebook
8899  15 Space-saving
8900  16 Lunch Box
8901  17 Main Server Chassis
8902  18 Expansion Chassis
8903  19 Sub Chassis
8904  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
8905  21 Peripheral Chassis
8906  22 RAID Chassis
8907  23 Rack Mount Chassis
8908  24 Sealed-case PC
8909  25 Multi-system
8910  26 CompactPCI
8911  27 AdvancedTCA
8912  28 Blade
8913  29 Blade Enclosing
8914 </pre>
8915
8916 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
8917 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
8918 claim it is a desktop.</p>
8919
8920 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
8921
8922 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
8923 test machine:</p>
8924
8925 <p><blockquote>
8926 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
8927 </blockquote></p>
8928
8929 <p>The values present are</p>
8930
8931 <pre>
8932   ty  01  (type)
8933   pr  00  (prototype)
8934   id  00  (id)
8935   ex  00  (extra)
8936 </pre>
8937
8938 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
8939 the valid values are.</p>
8940
8941 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
8942
8943 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
8944 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
8945 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
8946 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
8947 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
8948 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
8949 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
8950
8951 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
8952
8953 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
8954 one can use the following shell script:</p>
8955
8956 <pre>
8957   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
8958     echo "$id" ; \
8959     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
8960   done
8961 </pre>
8962
8963 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
8964 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
8965
8966 <pre>
8967   acpi:ACPI0003:
8968     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
8969   acpi:device:
8970   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
8971   acpi:IBM0068:
8972     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
8973     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
8974     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
8975     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
8976   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8977     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
8978     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
8979     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
8980   [...]
8981 </pre>
8982
8983 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8984 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8985 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8986 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8987
8988 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
8989 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
8990 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
8991
8992       </div>
8993       <div class="tags">
8994
8995
8996         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>.
8997
8998
8999       </div>
9000     </div>
9001     <div class="padding"></div>
9002
9003     <div class="entry">
9004       <div class="title">
9005         <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>
9006       </div>
9007       <div class="date">
9008         10th January 2013
9009       </div>
9010       <div class="body">
9011         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
9012 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
9013 Launcher and updated the Debian package
9014 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
9015 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
9016 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
9017 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
9018 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
9019 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
9020 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
9021 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
9022 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
9023 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
9024 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
9025 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
9026 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
9027 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
9028 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
9029
9030       </div>
9031       <div class="tags">
9032
9033
9034         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9035
9036
9037       </div>
9038     </div>
9039     <div class="padding"></div>
9040
9041     <div class="entry">
9042       <div class="title">
9043         <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>
9044       </div>
9045       <div class="date">
9046          9th January 2013
9047       </div>
9048       <div class="body">
9049         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
9050 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
9051 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
9052 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
9053 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
9054 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
9055 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
9056 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
9057 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
9058 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
9059 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
9060
9061 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
9062 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
9063 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
9064 simple:
9065
9066 <ul>
9067
9068 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
9069   starting when a user log in.</li>
9070
9071 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
9072   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
9073
9074 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
9075   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
9076   packages.</li>
9077
9078 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
9079   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
9080
9081 </ul>
9082
9083 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
9084 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
9085 discover database to find packages and
9086 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
9087 packages.</p>
9088
9089 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
9090 draft package is now checked into
9091 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
9092 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
9093 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
9094 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
9095 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
9096 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
9097 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
9098 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
9099 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
9100 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
9101 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
9102 because of the freeze).</p>
9103
9104 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
9105 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
9106 inserted):</p>
9107
9108 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
9109
9110 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
9111 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
9112 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
9113
9114 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
9115 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
9116 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
9117 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
9118 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
9119 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
9120 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
9121
9122 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
9123 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
9124 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
9125 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
9126 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
9127 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
9128 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
9129 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
9130 not be installed?</p>
9131
9132 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
9133 please send me an email. :)</p>
9134
9135       </div>
9136       <div class="tags">
9137
9138
9139         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>.
9140
9141
9142       </div>
9143     </div>
9144     <div class="padding"></div>
9145
9146     <div class="entry">
9147       <div class="title">
9148         <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>
9149       </div>
9150       <div class="date">
9151          2nd January 2013
9152       </div>
9153       <div class="body">
9154         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
9155 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
9156 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
9157 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
9158 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
9159 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
9160 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
9161 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
9162 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
9163 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
9164
9165 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
9166 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
9167 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
9168
9169       </div>
9170       <div class="tags">
9171
9172
9173         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/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9174
9175
9176       </div>
9177     </div>
9178     <div class="padding"></div>
9179
9180     <div class="entry">
9181       <div class="title">
9182         <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>
9183       </div>
9184       <div class="date">
9185         25th December 2012
9186       </div>
9187       <div class="body">
9188         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
9189 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
9190
9191 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
9192 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
9193 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
9194 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
9195 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
9196 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
9197 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
9198 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
9199 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
9200 name.</p>
9201
9202 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
9203 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
9204 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
9205
9206 <blockquote><pre>
9207 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
9208 cd bitcoin
9209 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
9210 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
9211 </pre></blockquote>
9212
9213 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
9214 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
9215 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
9216 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
9217 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
9218 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
9219 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
9220 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
9221 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
9222
9223 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9224 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9225 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9226
9227       </div>
9228       <div class="tags">
9229
9230
9231         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>.
9232
9233
9234       </div>
9235     </div>
9236     <div class="padding"></div>
9237
9238     <div class="entry">
9239       <div class="title">
9240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
9241       </div>
9242       <div class="date">
9243         21st December 2012
9244       </div>
9245       <div class="body">
9246         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
9247 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
9248 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
9249 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
9250 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
9251 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
9252 is now maintained by a
9253 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
9254 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
9255 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
9256 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
9257 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
9258 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
9259 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
9260 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
9261 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
9262 Corallo in a
9263 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
9264 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
9265 Debian package.</p>
9266
9267 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
9268 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
9269 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
9270 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
9271 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
9272 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
9273 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
9274 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
9275 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
9276 new version to unstable.
9277
9278 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
9279 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
9280 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
9281 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
9282 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
9283 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
9284 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
9285 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
9286 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
9287 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
9288 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
9289 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
9290 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
9291 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
9292 have not tested them.</p>
9293
9294 <p>My
9295 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
9296 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
9297 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
9298 years ago, as can be
9299 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
9300 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
9301 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
9302 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
9303 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
9304 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
9305 the same address as last time,
9306 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9307
9308       </div>
9309       <div class="tags">
9310
9311
9312         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>.
9313
9314
9315       </div>
9316     </div>
9317     <div class="padding"></div>
9318
9319     <div class="entry">
9320       <div class="title">
9321         <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>
9322       </div>
9323       <div class="date">
9324          7th September 2012
9325       </div>
9326       <div class="body">
9327         <p>As I
9328 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
9329 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
9330 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
9331 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
9332 repository for the project</a>.</p>
9333
9334 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
9335 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
9336 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
9337 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
9338
9339 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
9340 PostScript formats at
9341 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
9342 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
9343
9344       </div>
9345       <div class="tags">
9346
9347
9348         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>.
9349
9350
9351       </div>
9352     </div>
9353     <div class="padding"></div>
9354
9355     <div class="entry">
9356       <div class="title">
9357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
9358       </div>
9359       <div class="date">
9360         16th August 2012
9361       </div>
9362       <div class="body">
9363         <p>I dag fyller
9364 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
9365 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
9366 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
9367
9368       </div>
9369       <div class="tags">
9370
9371
9372         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>.
9373
9374
9375       </div>
9376     </div>
9377     <div class="padding"></div>
9378
9379     <div class="entry">
9380       <div class="title">
9381         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
9382       </div>
9383       <div class="date">
9384         24th June 2012
9385       </div>
9386       <div class="body">
9387         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
9388 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
9389 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
9390 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
9391 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
9392 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
9393 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
9394 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
9395 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
9396 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
9397 missing in my book.</p>
9398
9399 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
9400 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
9401 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
9402 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
9403 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
9404 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
9405 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
9406
9407       </div>
9408       <div class="tags">
9409
9410
9411         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>.
9412
9413
9414       </div>
9415     </div>
9416     <div class="padding"></div>
9417
9418     <div class="entry">
9419       <div class="title">
9420         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
9421       </div>
9422       <div class="date">
9423         21st November 2011
9424       </div>
9425       <div class="body">
9426         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
9427 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
9428 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
9429 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
9430 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
9431 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
9432 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
9433 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
9434 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
9435 the tools to do so.</p>
9436
9437 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
9438 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
9439 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
9440 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
9441
9442 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
9443 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
9444 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
9445 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
9446 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
9447 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
9448 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
9449 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
9450
9451 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
9452 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
9453 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
9454
9455 <p><pre>
9456 #!/usr/bin/perl
9457 use strict;
9458 use warnings;
9459 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
9460 BEGIN {
9461     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
9462     my %rhelmodules = (
9463         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
9464         );
9465     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
9466         eval "use $module;";
9467         if ($@) {
9468             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
9469             system("yum install -y $pkg");
9470             eval "use $module;";
9471         }
9472     }
9473 }
9474 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
9475
9476 upgrade_dell();
9477
9478 exit 0;
9479
9480 sub run_firmware_script {
9481     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
9482     unless ($script) {
9483         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
9484         exit 1
9485     }
9486     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
9487
9488     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
9489         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
9490     } else {
9491         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
9492     }
9493 }
9494
9495 sub run_firmware_scripts {
9496     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
9497     # Run firmware packages
9498     for my $dir (@dirs) {
9499         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
9500         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
9501         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
9502             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
9503             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
9504         }
9505         closedir $dh;
9506     }
9507 }
9508
9509 sub download {
9510     my $url = shift;
9511     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
9512     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
9513 }
9514
9515 sub upgrade_dell {
9516     my @dirs;
9517     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9518     chomp $product;
9519
9520     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
9521
9522         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
9523         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
9524
9525         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
9526             CLEANUP => 1
9527             );
9528         chdir($tmpdir);
9529         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
9530         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
9531         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
9532         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
9533         my $fwopts = "-q";
9534         if (@paths) {
9535             for my $url (@paths) {
9536                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
9537             }
9538             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
9539         } else {
9540             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9541             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9542         }
9543         chdir('/');
9544     } else {
9545         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9546         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9547     }
9548 }
9549
9550 sub fetch_dell_fw {
9551     my $path = shift;
9552     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
9553     download($url);
9554 }
9555
9556 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
9557 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
9558 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
9559 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
9560     my $filename = shift;
9561
9562     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9563     chomp $product;
9564     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
9565
9566     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
9567
9568     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
9569     my @paths;
9570     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
9571         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
9572         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
9573         my $oscode;
9574         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
9575             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
9576         } else {
9577             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
9578         }
9579         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
9580         {
9581             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
9582         }
9583     }
9584     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
9585         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
9586
9587         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
9588         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
9589
9590         my $cpath = $component->{path};
9591         for my $path (@paths) {
9592             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
9593                 push(@paths, $cpath);
9594             }
9595         }
9596     }
9597     return @paths;
9598 }
9599 </pre>
9600
9601 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
9602 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
9603 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
9604 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
9605 outdated.</p>
9606
9607       </div>
9608       <div class="tags">
9609
9610
9611         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>.
9612
9613
9614       </div>
9615     </div>
9616     <div class="padding"></div>
9617
9618     <div class="entry">
9619       <div class="title">
9620         <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>
9621       </div>
9622       <div class="date">
9623          4th August 2011
9624       </div>
9625       <div class="body">
9626         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
9627 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
9628 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
9629 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
9630 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
9631 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
9632 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
9633 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
9634 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
9635
9636 <p><blockquote>
9637 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
9638 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
9639 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
9640 </blockquote></p>
9641
9642 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
9643 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
9644 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
9645 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
9646 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
9647 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
9648 hard to explain.</p>
9649
9650 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
9651 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
9652 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
9653 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
9654 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
9655 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
9656 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
9657 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
9658 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
9659 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
9660 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
9661 mode).</p>
9662
9663 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
9664 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
9665 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
9666 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
9667 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
9668 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
9669 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
9670 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
9671 after visiting single user mode.</p>
9672
9673 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
9674 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
9675 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
9676 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
9677 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
9678 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
9679 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
9680 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
9681
9682 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
9683 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
9684 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
9685
9686       </div>
9687       <div class="tags">
9688
9689
9690         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>.
9691
9692
9693       </div>
9694     </div>
9695     <div class="padding"></div>
9696
9697     <div class="entry">
9698       <div class="title">
9699         <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>
9700       </div>
9701       <div class="date">
9702         30th July 2011
9703       </div>
9704       <div class="body">
9705         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
9706 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
9707 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
9708 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
9709 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
9710 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
9711 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
9712 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
9713 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
9714 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
9715 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
9716 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
9717 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
9718
9719 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
9720 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
9721 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
9722 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
9723 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
9724 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
9725 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
9726 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
9727 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
9728
9729 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
9730 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
9731 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
9732 is presented.</p>
9733
9734 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
9735 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
9736 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
9737 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
9738 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
9739 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
9740 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
9741 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
9742 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
9743 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
9744 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
9745 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
9746 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
9747 find time to push this forward.</p>
9748
9749       </div>
9750       <div class="tags">
9751
9752
9753         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>.
9754
9755
9756       </div>
9757     </div>
9758     <div class="padding"></div>
9759
9760     <div class="entry">
9761       <div class="title">
9762         <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>
9763       </div>
9764       <div class="date">
9765         29th July 2011
9766       </div>
9767       <div class="body">
9768         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
9769 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
9770 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
9771 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
9772 issues.</p>
9773
9774 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
9775 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
9776 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
9777
9778 <ol>
9779
9780 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
9781 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
9782 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
9783 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
9784 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
9785 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
9786 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
9787 Debian.</li>
9788
9789 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
9790 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
9791 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
9792 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
9793 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
9794 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
9795 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
9796 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
9797 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
9798 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
9799 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
9800 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
9801 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
9802
9803 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
9804 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
9805 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
9806 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
9807 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
9808 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
9809 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
9810 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
9811 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
9812 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
9813
9814 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
9815 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
9816 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
9817 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
9818 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
9819 latter behaviour.</li>
9820
9821 </ol>
9822
9823 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
9824 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
9825 it do not matter much.</p>
9826
9827 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
9828 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
9829 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
9830
9831       </div>
9832       <div class="tags">
9833
9834
9835         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9836
9837
9838       </div>
9839     </div>
9840     <div class="padding"></div>
9841
9842     <div class="entry">
9843       <div class="title">
9844         <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>
9845       </div>
9846       <div class="date">
9847         26th July 2011
9848       </div>
9849       <div class="body">
9850         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
9851 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
9852 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
9853 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
9854 security support for a few years.</p>
9855
9856 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
9857 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
9858 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
9859 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
9860 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
9861 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
9862 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
9863 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
9864 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
9865 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
9866 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
9867 easier in the future.</p>
9868
9869 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
9870 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
9871 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
9872 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
9873 do not have time for.</p>
9874
9875       </div>
9876       <div class="tags">
9877
9878
9879         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>.
9880
9881
9882       </div>
9883     </div>
9884     <div class="padding"></div>
9885
9886     <div class="entry">
9887       <div class="title">
9888         <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>
9889       </div>
9890       <div class="date">
9891          3rd April 2011
9892       </div>
9893       <div class="body">
9894         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
9895 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
9896 update in English.</p>
9897
9898 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
9899 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
9900 of the British service
9901 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
9902 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
9903 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
9904 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
9905 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
9906 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
9907 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
9908 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
9909 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
9910 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
9911 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
9912 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
9913 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
9914
9915 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
9916 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
9917 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
9918 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
9919 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
9920 public infrastructure.</p>
9921
9922 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
9923 such service?</p>
9924
9925       </div>
9926       <div class="tags">
9927
9928
9929         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>.
9930
9931
9932       </div>
9933     </div>
9934     <div class="padding"></div>
9935
9936     <div class="entry">
9937       <div class="title">
9938         <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>
9939       </div>
9940       <div class="date">
9941         28th January 2011
9942       </div>
9943       <div class="body">
9944         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
9945 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
9946 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
9947 available on the Internet, and check our locally
9948 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
9949 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
9950 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
9951 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
9952 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
9953 out which security holes were present in our free software
9954 collection.</p>
9955
9956 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
9957 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
9958 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
9959 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
9960 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
9961 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
9962 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
9963 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
9964 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
9965 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
9966 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
9967 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
9968 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
9969 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
9970 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
9971 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
9972
9973 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
9974 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
9975 check out, one could look up
9976 <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
9977 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
9978 The most recent one is
9979 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
9980 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
9981 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
9982
9983 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
9984 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
9985 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
9986 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
9987 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
9988 security issues out.</p>
9989
9990 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
9991 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
9992 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
9993 RHEL is providing
9994 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
9995 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
9996 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
9997
9998 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
9999 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
10000 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
10001 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
10002 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
10003 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
10004 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
10005 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
10006 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
10007 established soon.</p>
10008
10009 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
10010 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
10011 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
10012 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
10013 for their packages.</p>
10014
10015       </div>
10016       <div class="tags">
10017
10018
10019         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>.
10020
10021
10022       </div>
10023     </div>
10024     <div class="padding"></div>
10025
10026     <div class="entry">
10027       <div class="title">
10028         <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>
10029       </div>
10030       <div class="date">
10031         23rd January 2011
10032       </div>
10033       <div class="body">
10034         <p>In the
10035 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
10036 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
10037 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
10038 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
10039 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
10040 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
10041 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
10042 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
10043 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
10044 one of my machines like this:</p>
10045
10046 <pre>
10047 loaded modules:
10048 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
10049 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
10050 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
10051 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
10052 10de:03ec pata_amd
10053 10de:03f6 sata_nv
10054 1022:1103 k8temp
10055 109e:036e bttv
10056 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
10057 11ab:4364 sky2
10058 </pre>
10059
10060 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
10061 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
10062
10063 <pre>
10064 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
10065     echo loaded pci modules:
10066     (
10067         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
10068         for address in * ; do
10069             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10070                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10071                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10072                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10073                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
10074                     echo "$id $module"
10075                 fi
10076             fi
10077         done
10078     )
10079     echo
10080 fi
10081 </pre>
10082
10083 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
10084 mappings:</p>
10085
10086 <pre>
10087 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
10088     echo loaded usb modules:
10089     (
10090         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
10091         for address in * ; do
10092             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10093                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10094                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10095                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10096                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
10097                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
10098                         echo "$id $module"
10099                     fi
10100                 fi
10101             fi
10102         done
10103     )
10104     echo
10105 fi
10106 </pre>
10107
10108 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
10109 well.</p>
10110
10111       </div>
10112       <div class="tags">
10113
10114
10115         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>.
10116
10117
10118       </div>
10119     </div>
10120     <div class="padding"></div>
10121
10122     <div class="entry">
10123       <div class="title">
10124         <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>
10125       </div>
10126       <div class="date">
10127         22nd December 2010
10128       </div>
10129       <div class="body">
10130         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
10131 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
10132 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
10133 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
10134 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
10135 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
10136 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
10137 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
10138 university.</p>
10139
10140 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
10141 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
10142 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
10143 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
10144 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
10145 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
10146 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
10147 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
10148
10149 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
10150 I perform on a new model.</p>
10151
10152 <ul>
10153
10154 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
10155 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
10156 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
10157
10158 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
10159 installation, X.org is working.</li>
10160
10161 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
10162 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
10163 reported by the program.</li>
10164
10165 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
10166 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
10167 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
10168 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
10169 normally test this by playing
10170 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
10171 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
10172
10173 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
10174 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
10175
10176 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
10177 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
10178
10179 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
10180 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
10181
10182 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
10183 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
10184 few.</li>
10185
10186 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
10187 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
10188 notice this.</li>
10189
10190 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
10191 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
10192 resume.</li>
10193
10194 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
10195 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
10196 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
10197 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
10198 not.</li>
10199
10200 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
10201 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
10202 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
10203 existence.</li>
10204
10205 </ul>
10206
10207 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
10208 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
10209 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
10210 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
10211 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
10212 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
10213 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
10214 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
10215
10216       </div>
10217       <div class="tags">
10218
10219
10220         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>.
10221
10222
10223       </div>
10224     </div>
10225     <div class="padding"></div>
10226
10227     <div class="entry">
10228       <div class="title">
10229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
10230       </div>
10231       <div class="date">
10232         11th December 2010
10233       </div>
10234       <div class="body">
10235         <p>As I continue to explore
10236 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
10237 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
10238 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
10239
10240 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
10241 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
10242 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
10243 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
10244 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
10245 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
10246 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
10247 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
10248 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
10249 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
10250 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
10251 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
10252 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
10253 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
10254 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
10255 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
10256 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
10257 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
10258 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
10259 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
10260
10261 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
10262 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
10263 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
10264 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
10265 If the Skolelinux foundation
10266 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
10267 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
10268 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
10269 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
10270 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
10271 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
10272 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
10273 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
10274
10275 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
10276 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
10277 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
10278 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
10279 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
10280 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
10281 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
10282 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
10283 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
10284 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
10285 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
10286 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
10287 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
10288 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
10289 currencies.</p>
10290
10291 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
10292 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
10293 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
10294 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
10295 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
10296 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
10297 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
10298 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
10299 BitCoins.  Check out
10300 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
10301 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
10302 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
10303 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
10304 yet.</p>
10305
10306 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
10307 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
10308 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
10309 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
10310 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
10311
10312       </div>
10313       <div class="tags">
10314
10315
10316         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>.
10317
10318
10319       </div>
10320     </div>
10321     <div class="padding"></div>
10322
10323     <div class="entry">
10324       <div class="title">
10325         <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>
10326       </div>
10327       <div class="date">
10328         10th December 2010
10329       </div>
10330       <div class="body">
10331         <p>With this weeks lawless
10332 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
10333 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
10334 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
10335 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
10336 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
10337 A blog post from
10338 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
10339 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
10340 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
10341 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
10342 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
10343 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
10344 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
10345
10346 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
10347 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
10348 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
10349 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
10350 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
10351 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
10352 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
10353 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
10354 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
10355 Debian</a> soon.</p>
10356
10357 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
10358 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
10359 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
10360 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
10361 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
10362 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
10363 you can even get
10364 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
10365 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
10366 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
10367 on the current exchange rates.</p>
10368
10369 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
10370 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
10371 donations to the address
10372 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
10373
10374       </div>
10375       <div class="tags">
10376
10377
10378         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>.
10379
10380
10381       </div>
10382     </div>
10383     <div class="padding"></div>
10384
10385     <div class="entry">
10386       <div class="title">
10387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
10388       </div>
10389       <div class="date">
10390         27th November 2010
10391       </div>
10392       <div class="body">
10393         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
10394 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
10395 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
10396 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
10397 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
10398 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
10399 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
10400 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
10401
10402 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
10403 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10404 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
10405 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
10406 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
10407 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
10408 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
10409 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
10410 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
10411 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
10412 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
10413
10414 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
10415 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
10416 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
10417 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
10418 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
10419 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
10420 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
10421 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
10422 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
10423 what is going on.</p>
10424
10425       </div>
10426       <div class="tags">
10427
10428
10429         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>.
10430
10431
10432       </div>
10433     </div>
10434     <div class="padding"></div>
10435
10436     <div class="entry">
10437       <div class="title">
10438         <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>
10439       </div>
10440       <div class="date">
10441         22nd November 2010
10442       </div>
10443       <div class="body">
10444         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
10445 upgrade testing of the
10446 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10447 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
10448 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
10449 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
10450
10451 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
10452
10453 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10454
10455 <blockquote><p>
10456   apache2.2-bin
10457   aptdaemon
10458   baobab
10459   binfmt-support
10460   browser-plugin-gnash
10461   cheese-common
10462   cli-common
10463   cups-pk-helper
10464   dmz-cursor-theme
10465   empathy
10466   empathy-common
10467   freedesktop-sound-theme
10468   freeglut3
10469   gconf-defaults-service
10470   gdm-themes
10471   gedit-plugins
10472   geoclue
10473   geoclue-hostip
10474   geoclue-localnet
10475   geoclue-manual
10476   geoclue-yahoo
10477   gnash
10478   gnash-common
10479   gnome
10480   gnome-backgrounds
10481   gnome-cards-data
10482   gnome-codec-install
10483   gnome-core
10484   gnome-desktop-environment
10485   gnome-disk-utility
10486   gnome-screenshot
10487   gnome-search-tool
10488   gnome-session-canberra
10489   gnome-system-log
10490   gnome-themes-extras
10491   gnome-themes-more
10492   gnome-user-share
10493   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
10494   gstreamer0.10-tools
10495   gtk2-engines
10496   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
10497   gtk2-engines-smooth
10498   hamster-applet
10499   libapache2-mod-dnssd
10500   libapr1
10501   libaprutil1
10502   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
10503   libaprutil1-ldap
10504   libart2.0-cil
10505   libboost-date-time1.42.0
10506   libboost-python1.42.0
10507   libboost-thread1.42.0
10508   libchamplain-0.4-0
10509   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
10510   libcheese-gtk18
10511   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
10512   libcryptui0
10513   libdiscid0
10514   libelf1
10515   libepc-1.0-2
10516   libepc-common
10517   libepc-ui-1.0-2
10518   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
10519   libfreerdp0
10520   libgconf2.0-cil
10521   libgdata-common
10522   libgdata7
10523   libgdu-gtk0
10524   libgee2
10525   libgeoclue0
10526   libgexiv2-0
10527   libgif4
10528   libglade2.0-cil
10529   libglib2.0-cil
10530   libgmime2.4-cil
10531   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
10532   libgnome2.24-cil
10533   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
10534   libgpod-common
10535   libgpod4
10536   libgtk2.0-cil
10537   libgtkglext1
10538   libgtksourceview2.0-common
10539   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
10540   libmono-addins0.2-cil
10541   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
10542   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
10543   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
10544   libmono-posix2.0-cil
10545   libmono-security2.0-cil
10546   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
10547   libmono-system2.0-cil
10548   libmtp8
10549   libmusicbrainz3-6
10550   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
10551   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
10552   libopal3.6.8
10553   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
10554   libpt2.6.7
10555   libpython2.6
10556   librpm1
10557   librpmio1
10558   libsdl1.2debian
10559   libsrtp0
10560   libssh-4
10561   libtelepathy-farsight0
10562   libtelepathy-glib0
10563   libtidy-0.99-0
10564   media-player-info
10565   mesa-utils
10566   mono-2.0-gac
10567   mono-gac
10568   mono-runtime
10569   nautilus-sendto
10570   nautilus-sendto-empathy
10571   p7zip-full
10572   pkg-config
10573   python-aptdaemon
10574   python-aptdaemon-gtk
10575   python-axiom
10576   python-beautifulsoup
10577   python-bugbuddy
10578   python-clientform
10579   python-coherence
10580   python-configobj
10581   python-crypto
10582   python-cupshelpers
10583   python-elementtree
10584   python-epsilon
10585   python-evolution
10586   python-feedparser
10587   python-gdata
10588   python-gdbm
10589   python-gst0.10
10590   python-gtkglext1
10591   python-gtksourceview2
10592   python-httplib2
10593   python-louie
10594   python-mako
10595   python-markupsafe
10596   python-mechanize
10597   python-nevow
10598   python-notify
10599   python-opengl
10600   python-openssl
10601   python-pam
10602   python-pkg-resources
10603   python-pyasn1
10604   python-pysqlite2
10605   python-rdflib
10606   python-serial
10607   python-tagpy
10608   python-twisted-bin
10609   python-twisted-conch
10610   python-twisted-core
10611   python-twisted-web
10612   python-utidylib
10613   python-webkit
10614   python-xdg
10615   python-zope.interface
10616   remmina
10617   remmina-plugin-data
10618   remmina-plugin-rdp
10619   remmina-plugin-vnc
10620   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
10621   rhythmbox-plugins
10622   rpm-common
10623   rpm2cpio
10624   seahorse-plugins
10625   shotwell
10626   software-center
10627   system-config-printer-udev
10628   telepathy-gabble
10629   telepathy-mission-control-5
10630   telepathy-salut
10631   tomboy
10632   totem
10633   totem-coherence
10634   totem-mozilla
10635   totem-plugins
10636   transmission-common
10637   xdg-user-dirs
10638   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
10639   xserver-xephyr
10640 </p></blockquote>
10641
10642 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10643
10644 <blockquote><p>
10645   cheese
10646   ekiga
10647   eog
10648   epiphany-extensions
10649   evolution-exchange
10650   fast-user-switch-applet
10651   file-roller
10652   gcalctool
10653   gconf-editor
10654   gdm
10655   gedit
10656   gedit-common
10657   gnome-games
10658   gnome-games-data
10659   gnome-nettool
10660   gnome-system-tools
10661   gnome-themes
10662   gnuchess
10663   gucharmap
10664   guile-1.8-libs
10665   libavahi-ui0
10666   libdmx1
10667   libgalago3
10668   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
10669   libgtksourceview2.0-0
10670   liblircclient0
10671   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
10672   libspeexdsp1
10673   libsvga1
10674   rhythmbox
10675   seahorse
10676   sound-juicer
10677   system-config-printer
10678   totem-common
10679   transmission-gtk
10680   vinagre
10681   vino
10682 </p></blockquote>
10683
10684 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10685
10686 <blockquote><p>
10687   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10688 </p></blockquote>
10689
10690 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10691
10692 <blockquote><p>
10693 [nothing]
10694 </p></blockquote>
10695
10696 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
10697
10698 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10699
10700 <blockquote><p>
10701   ksmserver
10702 </p></blockquote>
10703
10704 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10705
10706 <blockquote><p>
10707   kwin
10708   network-manager-kde
10709 </p></blockquote>
10710
10711 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10712
10713 <blockquote><p>
10714   arts
10715   dolphin
10716   freespacenotifier
10717   google-gadgets-gst
10718   google-gadgets-xul
10719   kappfinder
10720   kcalc
10721   kcharselect
10722   kde-core
10723   kde-plasma-desktop
10724   kde-standard
10725   kde-window-manager
10726   kdeartwork
10727   kdeartwork-emoticons
10728   kdeartwork-style
10729   kdeartwork-theme-icon
10730   kdebase
10731   kdebase-apps
10732   kdebase-workspace
10733   kdebase-workspace-bin
10734   kdebase-workspace-data
10735   kdeeject
10736   kdelibs
10737   kdeplasma-addons
10738   kdeutils
10739   kdewallpapers
10740   kdf
10741   kfloppy
10742   kgpg
10743   khelpcenter4
10744   kinfocenter
10745   konq-plugins-l10n
10746   konqueror-nsplugins
10747   kscreensaver
10748   kscreensaver-xsavers
10749   ktimer
10750   kwrite
10751   libgle3
10752   libkde4-ruby1.8
10753   libkonq5
10754   libkonq5-templates
10755   libnetpbm10
10756   libplasma-ruby
10757   libplasma-ruby1.8
10758   libqt4-ruby1.8
10759   marble-data
10760   marble-plugins
10761   netpbm
10762   nuvola-icon-theme
10763   plasma-dataengines-workspace
10764   plasma-desktop
10765   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
10766   plasma-runners-addons
10767   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
10768   plasma-scriptengine-python
10769   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
10770   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
10771   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
10772   plasma-scriptengines
10773   plasma-wallpapers-addons
10774   plasma-widget-folderview
10775   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10776   ruby
10777   sweeper
10778   update-notifier-kde
10779   xscreensaver-data-extra
10780   xscreensaver-gl
10781   xscreensaver-gl-extra
10782   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10783 </p></blockquote>
10784
10785 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10786
10787 <blockquote><p>
10788   ark
10789   google-gadgets-common
10790   google-gadgets-qt
10791   htdig
10792   kate
10793   kdebase-bin
10794   kdebase-data
10795   kdepasswd
10796   kfind
10797   klipper
10798   konq-plugins
10799   konqueror
10800   ksysguard
10801   ksysguardd
10802   libarchive1
10803   libcln6
10804   libeet1
10805   libeina-svn-06
10806   libggadget-1.0-0b
10807   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
10808   libgps19
10809   libkdecorations4
10810   libkephal4
10811   libkonq4
10812   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
10813   libkscreensaver5
10814   libksgrd4
10815   libksignalplotter4
10816   libkunitconversion4
10817   libkwineffects1a
10818   libmarblewidget4
10819   libntrack-qt4-1
10820   libntrack0
10821   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
10822   libplasmaclock4a
10823   libplasmagenericshell4
10824   libprocesscore4a
10825   libprocessui4a
10826   libqalculate5
10827   libqedje0a
10828   libqtruby4shared2
10829   libqzion0a
10830   libruby1.8
10831   libscim8c2a
10832   libsmokekdecore4-3
10833   libsmokekdeui4-3
10834   libsmokekfile3
10835   libsmokekhtml3
10836   libsmokekio3
10837   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
10838   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
10839   libsmokekparts3
10840   libsmokektexteditor3
10841   libsmokekutils3
10842   libsmokenepomuk3
10843   libsmokephonon3
10844   libsmokeplasma3
10845   libsmokeqtcore4-3
10846   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
10847   libsmokeqtgui4-3
10848   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
10849   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
10850   libsmokeqtscript4-3
10851   libsmokeqtsql4-3
10852   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
10853   libsmokeqttest4-3
10854   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
10855   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
10856   libsmokeqtxml4-3
10857   libsmokesolid3
10858   libsmokesoprano3
10859   libtaskmanager4a
10860   libtidy-0.99-0
10861   libweather-ion4a
10862   libxklavier16
10863   libxxf86misc1
10864   okteta
10865   oxygencursors
10866   plasma-dataengines-addons
10867   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
10868   plasma-widget-lancelot
10869   plasma-widgets-addons
10870   plasma-widgets-workspace
10871   polkit-kde-1
10872   ruby1.8
10873   systemsettings
10874   update-notifier-common
10875 </p></blockquote>
10876
10877 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
10878 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
10879 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
10880 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
10881
10882       </div>
10883       <div class="tags">
10884
10885
10886         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>.
10887
10888
10889       </div>
10890     </div>
10891     <div class="padding"></div>
10892
10893     <div class="entry">
10894       <div class="title">
10895         <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>
10896       </div>
10897       <div class="date">
10898         22nd November 2010
10899       </div>
10900       <div class="body">
10901         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
10902 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
10903 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
10904 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
10905 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
10906 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
10907 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
10908 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
10909 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
10910
10911 <p>I found
10912 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
10913 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
10914 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
10915 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
10916 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
10917 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
10918
10919 <pre>
10920 #!/bin/sh
10921
10922 # Based on
10923 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
10924
10925 set -e
10926 set -x
10927
10928 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
10929     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
10930     exit 1
10931 else
10932     host="$1"
10933 fi
10934
10935 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
10936     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
10937     exit 1
10938 fi
10939
10940 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
10941 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10942 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10943 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
10944
10945 img=$host.img
10946 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
10947 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
10948
10949 parted $img mklabel msdos
10950 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
10951 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
10952 parted $img set 1 boot on
10953
10954 modprobe dm-mod
10955 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
10956 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
10957
10958 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
10959 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
10960 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
10961
10962 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
10963 losetup -d /dev/loop0
10964 </pre>
10965
10966 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
10967 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
10968
10969 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
10970 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
10971 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
10972 seem to work just fine.</p>
10973
10974       </div>
10975       <div class="tags">
10976
10977
10978         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>.
10979
10980
10981       </div>
10982     </div>
10983     <div class="padding"></div>
10984
10985     <div class="entry">
10986       <div class="title">
10987         <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>
10988       </div>
10989       <div class="date">
10990         20th November 2010
10991       </div>
10992       <div class="body">
10993         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
10994 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10995 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
10996 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
10997
10998 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
10999 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
11000 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
11001
11002 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
11003
11004 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11005
11006 <blockquote><p>
11007   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
11008   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
11009   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
11010   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
11011   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
11012   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
11013   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
11014   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
11015   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
11016   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
11017   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
11018   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
11019   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
11020   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
11021   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
11022   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
11023   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
11024   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
11025   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
11026   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
11027   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
11028   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
11029   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
11030   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
11031   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
11032   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
11033   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
11034   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
11035   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
11036   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
11037   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
11038   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
11039   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
11040   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
11041   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
11042   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
11043   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
11044   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
11045   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
11046   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
11047   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
11048   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
11049   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
11050   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
11051   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
11052   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
11053   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
11054   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
11055   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
11056   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
11057   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
11058   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
11059   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
11060   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
11061   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
11062   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
11063   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
11064   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
11065   zip
11066 </p></blockquote>
11067
11068 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
11069
11070 <blockquote><p>
11071   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
11072   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
11073   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
11074   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
11075   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
11076   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
11077   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
11078   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
11079   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
11080   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
11081   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
11082   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
11083   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
11084   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11085   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
11086   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
11087   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
11088   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
11089   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
11090   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
11091   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
11092   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
11093   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
11094   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
11095   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
11096   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
11097   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
11098   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
11099   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
11100 </p></blockquote>
11101
11102 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11103
11104 <blockquote><p>
11105   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11106 </p></blockquote>
11107
11108 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11109
11110 <blockquote><p>
11111 [nothing]
11112 </p></blockquote>
11113
11114 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
11115
11116 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11117
11118 <blockquote><p>
11119   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
11120   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11121   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
11122   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
11123   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
11124   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
11125   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11126   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
11127   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
11128   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11129   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
11130   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
11131   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
11132   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
11133   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
11134   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
11135   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
11136   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
11137   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
11138   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
11139   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
11140   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
11141   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
11142   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
11143   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
11144   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
11145   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
11146   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
11147   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
11148   ttf-sazanami-gothic
11149 </p></blockquote>
11150
11151 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11152
11153 <blockquote><p>
11154   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
11155   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
11156   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
11157   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
11158   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
11159   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
11160   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
11161   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
11162   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
11163   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
11164   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
11165   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
11166   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
11167   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
11168   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11169   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11170   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
11171   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
11172   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11173   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
11174   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
11175   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
11176   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11177   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11178   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
11179   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
11180   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
11181   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
11182   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
11183   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
11184   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
11185   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
11186   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
11187 </p></blockquote>
11188
11189 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11190
11191 <blockquote><p>
11192   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
11193   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
11194   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
11195   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
11196   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
11197   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
11198   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
11199 </p></blockquote>
11200
11201 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11202
11203 <blockquote><p>
11204   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
11205 </p></blockquote>
11206
11207       </div>
11208       <div class="tags">
11209
11210
11211         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>.
11212
11213
11214       </div>
11215     </div>
11216     <div class="padding"></div>
11217
11218     <div class="entry">
11219       <div class="title">
11220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
11221       </div>
11222       <div class="date">
11223         20th November 2010
11224       </div>
11225       <div class="body">
11226         <p>Answering
11227 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
11228 call from the Gnash project</a> for
11229 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
11230 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
11231 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
11232 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
11233 releases out more often.</p>
11234
11235 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
11236 I have considered setting up a <a
11237 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
11238 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
11239 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
11240 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
11241 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
11242 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
11243 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
11244 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
11245 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
11246 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
11247 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
11248 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
11249
11250       </div>
11251       <div class="tags">
11252
11253
11254         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>.
11255
11256
11257       </div>
11258     </div>
11259     <div class="padding"></div>
11260
11261     <div class="entry">
11262       <div class="title">
11263         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
11264       </div>
11265       <div class="date">
11266          9th November 2010
11267       </div>
11268       <div class="body">
11269         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
11270
11271 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
11272 3D linked in from
11273 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
11274 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
11275
11276       </div>
11277       <div class="tags">
11278
11279
11280         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>.
11281
11282
11283       </div>
11284     </div>
11285     <div class="padding"></div>
11286
11287     <div class="entry">
11288       <div class="title">
11289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
11290       </div>
11291       <div class="date">
11292         24th October 2010
11293       </div>
11294       <div class="body">
11295         <p>Some updates.</p>
11296
11297 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
11298 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
11299 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
11300 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
11301 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
11302 :)</p>
11303
11304 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
11305 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
11306 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
11307 It is called
11308 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
11309 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
11310 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
11311 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
11312 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
11313 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
11314
11315 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
11316 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
11317 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
11318 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
11319 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
11320 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
11321 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
11322 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
11323 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
11324 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
11325
11326       </div>
11327       <div class="tags">
11328
11329
11330         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>.
11331
11332
11333       </div>
11334     </div>
11335     <div class="padding"></div>
11336
11337     <div class="entry">
11338       <div class="title">
11339         <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>
11340       </div>
11341       <div class="date">
11342          4th September 2010
11343       </div>
11344       <div class="body">
11345         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
11346 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
11347 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
11348 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
11349 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
11350 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
11351 installed.</p>
11352
11353 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
11354 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
11355 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
11356 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
11357 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
11358 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
11359 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
11360 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
11361 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
11362
11363 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
11364 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
11365 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
11366 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
11367 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
11368 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
11369 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
11370 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
11371 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
11372 pages they want to visit.</p>
11373
11374 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
11375 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
11376 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
11377 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
11378 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
11379 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
11380 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
11381 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
11382 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
11383 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
11384 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
11385
11386       </div>
11387       <div class="tags">
11388
11389
11390         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>.
11391
11392
11393       </div>
11394     </div>
11395     <div class="padding"></div>
11396
11397     <div class="entry">
11398       <div class="title">
11399         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
11400       </div>
11401       <div class="date">
11402         27th July 2010
11403       </div>
11404       <div class="body">
11405         <p>I discovered this while doing
11406 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
11407 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
11408 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
11409 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
11410 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
11411
11412 <p>An example is from todays
11413 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
11414 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
11415 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
11416 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
11417 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
11418 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
11419 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
11420
11421 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
11422
11423 <blockquote><pre>
11424 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
11425  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
11426   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
11427 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
11428  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
11429 </pre></blockquote>
11430
11431 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
11432 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
11433 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
11434 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
11435 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
11436 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
11437 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
11438 of dependency loops.</p>
11439
11440 <p>Thanks to
11441 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
11442 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
11443 dependencies
11444 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
11445 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
11446
11447 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
11448 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
11449 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
11450 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
11451 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
11452 it.</p>
11453
11454       </div>
11455       <div class="tags">
11456
11457
11458         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>.
11459
11460
11461       </div>
11462     </div>
11463     <div class="padding"></div>
11464
11465     <div class="entry">
11466       <div class="title">
11467         <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>
11468       </div>
11469       <div class="date">
11470         17th July 2010
11471       </div>
11472       <div class="body">
11473         <p>This is a
11474 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
11475 on my
11476 <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
11477 work</a> on
11478 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
11479 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
11480
11481 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
11482 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
11483 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
11484 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
11485
11486 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
11487 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
11488 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
11489
11490 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
11491
11492 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
11493 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
11494 the web.
11495
11496 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
11497 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
11498 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
11499 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
11500 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
11501 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
11502
11503 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
11504 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
11505 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
11506 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
11507 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
11508 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
11509 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
11510 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
11511 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
11512 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
11513 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
11514 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
11515 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
11516 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
11517 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
11518 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
11519
11520 <blockquote><pre>
11521 ldapsearch -h ldap \
11522   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
11523   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
11524   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
11525   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
11526   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
11527   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
11528
11529 ldapsearch -h ldap \
11530   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
11531   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
11532   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
11533   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
11534   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
11535 </pre></blockquote>
11536
11537 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
11538 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
11539 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
11540 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11541 also exist.</p>
11542
11543 <blockquote><pre>
11544 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11545 objectclass: top
11546 objectclass: dnsdomain
11547 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11548 dc: tjener
11549 arecord: 10.0.2.2
11550 associateddomain: tjener.intern
11551
11552 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11553 objectclass: top
11554 objectclass: dnsdomain2
11555 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11556 dc: 2
11557 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
11558 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
11559 </pre></blockquote>
11560
11561 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
11562 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
11563 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
11564 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
11565 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
11566 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
11567 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
11568 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
11569 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
11570 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
11571 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
11572 instead.</p>
11573
11574 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
11575 like this:</p>
11576
11577 <blockquote><pre>
11578 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
11579   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
11580   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
11581   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
11582   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
11583   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
11584
11585 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
11586   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
11587 </pre></blockquote>
11588
11589 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
11590 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
11591 reverse lookups.</p>
11592
11593 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
11594 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
11595 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
11596 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
11597
11598 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
11599 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
11600 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
11601
11602 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
11603 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
11604 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
11605 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
11606 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
11607
11608 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
11609 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
11610 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
11611 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
11612 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
11613
11614 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
11615 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
11616 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
11617 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
11618 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
11619 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
11620
11621 <blockquote><pre>
11622 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
11623     SUP top
11624     AUXILIARY
11625     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
11626           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
11627           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
11628           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
11629           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
11630     ))
11631 </pre></blockquote>
11632
11633 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
11634 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
11635 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
11636 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
11637 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
11638 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
11639
11640 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
11641
11642 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
11643 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
11644 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
11645 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
11646 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
11647
11648 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
11649 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
11650 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
11651 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
11652
11653 <blockquote><pre>
11654 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
11655 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
11656 </pre></blockquote>
11657
11658 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
11659 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
11660 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
11661 search result is this entry:</p>
11662
11663 <blockquote><pre>
11664 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11665 cn: dhcp
11666 objectClass: top
11667 objectClass: dhcpServer
11668 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11669 </pre></blockquote>
11670
11671 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
11672 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
11673 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
11674 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
11675 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
11676 The search result is this entry:</p>
11677
11678 <blockquote><pre>
11679 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11680 cn: DHCP Config
11681 objectClass: top
11682 objectClass: dhcpService
11683 objectClass: dhcpOptions
11684 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11685 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
11686 dhcpStatements: authoritative
11687 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
11688 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
11689 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
11690 </pre></blockquote>
11691
11692 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
11693 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
11694 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
11695 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
11696 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
11697 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
11698 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
11699 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
11700 related computer objects.</p>
11701
11702 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
11703 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
11704 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
11705 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
11706 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
11707 like:</p>
11708
11709 <blockquote><pre>
11710 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11711 cn: hostname
11712 objectClass: top
11713 objectClass: dhcpHost
11714 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11715 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
11716 </pre></blockquote>
11717
11718 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
11719 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
11720 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
11721 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
11722 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
11723 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
11724 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
11725 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
11726 structural object class.
11727
11728 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
11729
11730 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
11731 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
11732 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
11733 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
11734 in the configuration.</p>
11735
11736 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
11737 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
11738 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
11739 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
11740 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
11741 structure.</p>
11742
11743 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
11744 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
11745
11746 <blockquote><pre>
11747 ou=services
11748   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
11749     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
11750     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
11751       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
11752         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
11753     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
11754       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
11755         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
11756     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
11757       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
11758 </pre></blockquote>
11759
11760 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
11761 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
11762 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
11763 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
11764
11765 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
11766 like this:</p>
11767
11768 <blockquote><pre>
11769 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11770 dc: hostname
11771 objectClass: top
11772 objectClass: dhcpHost
11773 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11774 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
11775 associateddomain: hostname.intern
11776 arecord: 10.11.12.13
11777 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11778 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
11779 </pre></blockquote>
11780
11781 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
11782 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
11783 auxiliary object class.</p>
11784
11785       </div>
11786       <div class="tags">
11787
11788
11789         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>.
11790
11791
11792       </div>
11793     </div>
11794     <div class="padding"></div>
11795
11796     <div class="entry">
11797       <div class="title">
11798         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
11799       </div>
11800       <div class="date">
11801         14th July 2010
11802       </div>
11803       <div class="body">
11804         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
11805 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
11806 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
11807 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
11808 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
11809
11810 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
11811 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
11812
11813 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
11814 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
11815 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
11816 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
11817 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
11818 to a slave DNS server.</p>
11819
11820 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
11821 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
11822 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
11823 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
11824 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
11825 seem to work.</p>
11826
11827 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
11828 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
11829 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
11830 this:</p>
11831
11832 <blockquote><pre>
11833   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
11834   cn: hostname
11835   objectClass: dhcphost
11836   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
11837   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
11838   associateddomain: hostname.intern
11839   arecord: 10.11.12.13
11840   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
11841   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
11842   ldapconfigsound: Y
11843 </pre></blockquote>
11844
11845 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
11846 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
11847 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
11848 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
11849
11850 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
11851 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
11852 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
11853 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
11854 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
11855 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
11856 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
11857 might be a good place to put it.</p>
11858
11859 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11860 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11861
11862       </div>
11863       <div class="tags">
11864
11865
11866         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>.
11867
11868
11869       </div>
11870     </div>
11871     <div class="padding"></div>
11872
11873     <div class="entry">
11874       <div class="title">
11875         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
11876       </div>
11877       <div class="date">
11878         11th July 2010
11879       </div>
11880       <div class="body">
11881         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
11882 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
11883 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
11884 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
11885
11886 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
11887 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
11888 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
11889 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
11890 LTSP clients.</p>
11891
11892 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
11893 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
11894 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
11895
11896 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
11897 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
11898 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
11899
11900 <blockquote><pre>
11901 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
11902 #
11903 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
11904 #
11905 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
11906 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
11907 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
11908 #
11909 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
11910 # existence of attribute names.
11911 #
11912 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
11913 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
11914 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
11915 #
11916 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
11917 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
11918 #
11919 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
11920 #     SUP top
11921 #     AUXILIARY
11922 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
11923
11924 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
11925 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
11926     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
11927     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
11928         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
11929         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
11930             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
11931             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
11932             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
11933             # bass value on to clients
11934             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
11935         done
11936     done
11937 fi
11938 </pre></blockquote>
11939
11940 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
11941 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
11942 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
11943 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
11944 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
11945
11946 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11947 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11948
11949 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
11950 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
11951 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
11952 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
11953 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
11954 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
11955
11956       </div>
11957       <div class="tags">
11958
11959
11960         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>.
11961
11962
11963       </div>
11964     </div>
11965     <div class="padding"></div>
11966
11967     <div class="entry">
11968       <div class="title">
11969         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11970       </div>
11971       <div class="date">
11972          9th July 2010
11973       </div>
11974       <div class="body">
11975         <p>Since
11976 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
11977 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
11978 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
11979 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
11980 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
11981 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
11982 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
11983 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
11984 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
11985 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
11986 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
11987 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
11988 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
11989
11990       </div>
11991       <div class="tags">
11992
11993
11994         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>.
11995
11996
11997       </div>
11998     </div>
11999     <div class="padding"></div>
12000
12001     <div class="entry">
12002       <div class="title">
12003         <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>
12004       </div>
12005       <div class="date">
12006          3rd July 2010
12007       </div>
12008       <div class="body">
12009         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
12010 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
12011 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
12012 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
12013 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
12014 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
12015 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
12016 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
12017
12018 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
12019 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
12020 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
12021 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
12022 publish the difference.</p>
12023
12024 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12025
12026 <blockquote><p>
12027   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12028   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
12029   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
12030   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12031   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
12032   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
12033   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
12034   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
12035 </p></blockquote>
12036
12037 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12038
12039 <blockquote><p>
12040   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
12041   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
12042   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
12043   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
12044   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
12045   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
12046   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12047   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12048   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12049   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
12050   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
12051   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
12052   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
12053   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
12054   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
12055   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12056   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
12057   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
12058   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
12059   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
12060 </p></blockquote>
12061
12062 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12063
12064 <blockquote><p>
12065   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
12066   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
12067   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12068   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12069   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
12070   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
12071   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
12072   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12073   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12074   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12075   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12076   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
12077   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
12078   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
12079   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
12080   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
12081   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
12082   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
12083   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
12084   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
12085   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
12086 </p></blockquote>
12087
12088 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12089
12090 <blockquote><p>
12091   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
12092   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
12093   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
12094 </p></blockquote>
12095
12096 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
12097 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
12098 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
12099 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
12100 the difference somewhat.
12101
12102       </div>
12103       <div class="tags">
12104
12105
12106         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>.
12107
12108
12109       </div>
12110     </div>
12111     <div class="padding"></div>
12112
12113     <div class="entry">
12114       <div class="title">
12115         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
12116       </div>
12117       <div class="date">
12118         28th June 2010
12119       </div>
12120       <div class="body">
12121         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
12122 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
12123 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
12124 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
12125 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
12126 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
12127 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
12128 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
12129 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
12130 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
12131
12132 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
12133 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
12134 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
12135 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
12136 released.</p>
12137
12138 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
12139 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
12140 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
12141 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
12142
12143 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
12144 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12145
12146 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
12147 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
12148 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
12149 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
12150 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
12151
12152       </div>
12153       <div class="tags">
12154
12155
12156         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>.
12157
12158
12159       </div>
12160     </div>
12161     <div class="padding"></div>
12162
12163     <div class="entry">
12164       <div class="title">
12165         <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>
12166       </div>
12167       <div class="date">
12168         24th June 2010
12169       </div>
12170       <div class="body">
12171         <p>A while back, I
12172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
12173 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
12174 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
12175 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
12176
12177 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
12178 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
12179 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
12180 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
12181
12182 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
12183 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
12184 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
12185 Debian Edu.</p>
12186
12187 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
12188 the
12189 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
12190 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
12191 available today from IETF.</p>
12192
12193 <pre>
12194 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
12195 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
12196 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
12197  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
12198         NAME 'dhcpHost'
12199         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
12200 -       SUP top
12201 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
12202         MUST cn
12203         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
12204         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
12205 </pre>
12206
12207 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
12208 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
12209 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
12210
12211 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12212 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12213
12214       </div>
12215       <div class="tags">
12216
12217
12218         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>.
12219
12220
12221       </div>
12222     </div>
12223     <div class="padding"></div>
12224
12225     <div class="entry">
12226       <div class="title">
12227         <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>
12228       </div>
12229       <div class="date">
12230         16th June 2010
12231       </div>
12232       <div class="body">
12233         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
12234 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
12235 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
12236 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
12237 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
12238 this:
12239
12240 <blockquote><pre>
12241 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12242 tasksel --new-install
12243 </pre></blockquote>
12244
12245 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
12246 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
12247 any output what so ever.
12248
12249 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
12250 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
12251 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
12252 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
12253 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
12254 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
12255 code like this:
12256
12257 <blockquote><pre>
12258 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12259 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
12260 $cmd
12261 </pre></blockquote>
12262
12263 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
12264 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
12265 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
12266 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
12267 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
12268 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
12269 installation.</p>
12270
12271 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
12272 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
12273 like this.</p>
12274
12275       </div>
12276       <div class="tags">
12277
12278
12279         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>.
12280
12281
12282       </div>
12283     </div>
12284     <div class="padding"></div>
12285
12286     <div class="entry">
12287       <div class="title">
12288         <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>
12289       </div>
12290       <div class="date">
12291         13th June 2010
12292       </div>
12293       <div class="body">
12294         <p>My
12295 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
12296 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
12297 finally made the upgrade logs available from
12298 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
12299 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
12300 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
12301 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
12302
12303 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
12304 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
12305 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
12306 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
12307 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
12308 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
12309 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
12310 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
12311
12312 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
12313 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
12314 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
12315 too surprising.</p>
12316
12317 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
12318 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
12319 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
12320 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
12321 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
12322 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
12323 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
12324 continue.</p>
12325
12326 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
12327 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
12328   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
12329   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
12330   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
12331   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
12332   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
12333   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12334   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12335   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
12336   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
12337   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
12338   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
12339   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12340   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12341   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12342   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12343   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12344   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
12345   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
12346   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
12347   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
12348   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
12349   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
12350   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
12351   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
12352   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
12353   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
12354   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
12355   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
12356
12357 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
12358
12359 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
12360   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
12361   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
12362   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
12363   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
12364   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
12365   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
12366   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
12367   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
12368   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
12369   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12370   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
12371   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
12372   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
12373   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
12374   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
12375   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
12376   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
12377   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
12378   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
12379   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
12380   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
12381   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
12382   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
12383   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
12384   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
12385   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
12386   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
12387   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
12388   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12389   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
12390   zip</p>
12391
12392 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
12393
12394 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
12395   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
12396   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
12397   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
12398   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
12399   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
12400   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
12401   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
12402   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
12403   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
12404   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
12405   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
12406   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
12407   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
12408   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12409   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
12410   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
12411   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
12412   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
12413   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
12414   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
12415   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
12416   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
12417   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
12418   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
12419   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
12420   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
12421   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
12422
12423 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
12424 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
12425   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12426   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
12427   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
12428   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12429   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
12430   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
12431   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12432   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
12433   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
12434   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
12435   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
12436   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
12437   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
12438   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
12439   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
12440   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12441   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12442   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
12443   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
12444   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12445   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
12446   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
12447   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12448   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12449   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
12450   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
12451   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
12452   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
12453   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
12454   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
12455   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
12456   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
12457   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
12458   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
12459   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
12460   xulrunner-1.9</p>
12461
12462
12463       </div>
12464       <div class="tags">
12465
12466
12467         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>.
12468
12469
12470       </div>
12471     </div>
12472     <div class="padding"></div>
12473
12474     <div class="entry">
12475       <div class="title">
12476         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
12477       </div>
12478       <div class="date">
12479         11th June 2010
12480       </div>
12481       <div class="body">
12482         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
12483 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
12484 have been discovered and reported in the process
12485 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
12486 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
12487 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
12488 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
12489 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
12490
12491 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
12492 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
12493 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
12494 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
12495 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
12496 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
12497
12498 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
12499 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
12500 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
12501 is created.  The bug report
12502 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
12503 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
12504 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
12505 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
12506 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
12507 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
12508 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
12509 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
12510 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
12511 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
12512 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
12513 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
12514 Debian Squeeze.</p>
12515
12516 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
12517 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
12518 trick:</p>
12519
12520 <blockquote><pre>
12521 #!/bin/sh
12522 set -ex
12523
12524 if [ "$1" ] ; then
12525     desktop=$1
12526 else
12527     desktop=gnome
12528 fi
12529
12530 from=lenny
12531 to=squeeze
12532
12533 exec &lt; /dev/null
12534 unset LANG
12535 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
12536 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
12537 fuser -mv .
12538 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
12539 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
12540 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
12541 #!/bin/sh
12542 exit 101
12543 EOF
12544 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
12545 exit_cleanup() {
12546     umount $tmpdir/proc
12547 }
12548 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
12549 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
12550 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
12551
12552 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
12553
12554 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
12555 # to return the correct answers.
12556 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
12557     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
12558
12559 # Include the desktop and laptop task
12560 for test in desktop laptop ; do
12561     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
12562 #!/bin/sh
12563 exit 2
12564 EOF
12565     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
12566 done
12567
12568 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
12569 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
12570 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
12571 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
12572
12573 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
12574 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
12575 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
12576 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
12577 fuser -mv
12578 </pre></blockquote>
12579
12580 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
12581 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
12582 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
12583 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
12584 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
12585 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
12586
12587 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
12588 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
12589 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
12590 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
12591 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
12592 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
12593 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
12594
12595 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
12596 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
12597 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
12598 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
12599 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
12600 packages.</p>
12601
12602       </div>
12603       <div class="tags">
12604
12605
12606         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>.
12607
12608
12609       </div>
12610     </div>
12611     <div class="padding"></div>
12612
12613     <div class="entry">
12614       <div class="title">
12615         <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>
12616       </div>
12617       <div class="date">
12618          6th June 2010
12619       </div>
12620       <div class="body">
12621         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
12622 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
12623 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
12624 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
12625 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
12626 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
12627 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
12628
12629 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
12630 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
12631 COLUMNS):</p>
12632
12633 <blockquote><pre>
12634 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
12635 previous=N
12636 PREVLEVEL=
12637 RUNLEVEL=
12638 runlevel=S
12639 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
12640 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
12641 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
12642 </pre></blockquote>
12643
12644 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
12645 script.</p>
12646
12647 <blockquote><pre>
12648 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
12649 previous=N
12650 PREVLEVEL=N
12651 RUNLEVEL=S
12652 runlevel=S
12653 </pre></blockquote>
12654
12655 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
12656 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
12657 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
12658
12659 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
12660 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
12661 choice.</p>
12662
12663       </div>
12664       <div class="tags">
12665
12666
12667         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>.
12668
12669
12670       </div>
12671     </div>
12672     <div class="padding"></div>
12673
12674     <div class="entry">
12675       <div class="title">
12676         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
12677       </div>
12678       <div class="date">
12679          6th June 2010
12680       </div>
12681       <div class="body">
12682         <p>Via the
12683 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
12684 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
12685 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
12686 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
12687 following the standards wars of today.</p>
12688
12689       </div>
12690       <div class="tags">
12691
12692
12693         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>.
12694
12695
12696       </div>
12697     </div>
12698     <div class="padding"></div>
12699
12700     <div class="entry">
12701       <div class="title">
12702         <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>
12703       </div>
12704       <div class="date">
12705          3rd June 2010
12706       </div>
12707       <div class="body">
12708         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
12709 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
12710 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
12711 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
12712 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
12713
12714 <blockquote><pre>
12715 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
12716   vendor                    count
12717   Dell Computer Corporation     1
12718     PowerEdge 1750              1
12719   IBM                           1
12720     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
12721   Intel                         2
12722   [no-dmi-info]                 3
12723 maintainer:~#
12724 </pre></blockquote>
12725
12726 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
12727 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
12728 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
12729 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
12730 option to list the individual machines.</p>
12731
12732 <p>A larger list is
12733 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
12734 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
12735 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
12736 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
12737 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
12738 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
12739 collector.</p>
12740
12741       </div>
12742       <div class="tags">
12743
12744
12745         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>.
12746
12747
12748       </div>
12749     </div>
12750     <div class="padding"></div>
12751
12752     <div class="entry">
12753       <div class="title">
12754         <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>
12755       </div>
12756       <div class="date">
12757          1st June 2010
12758       </div>
12759       <div class="body">
12760         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
12761 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
12762 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
12763 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
12764 wait.</p>
12765
12766 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
12767 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
12768 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
12769 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
12770 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
12771 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
12772
12773 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
12774 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
12775 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
12776 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
12777 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
12778 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
12779 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
12780 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
12781
12782 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
12783
12784       </div>
12785       <div class="tags">
12786
12787
12788         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>.
12789
12790
12791       </div>
12792     </div>
12793     <div class="padding"></div>
12794
12795     <div class="entry">
12796       <div class="title">
12797         <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>
12798       </div>
12799       <div class="date">
12800         27th May 2010
12801       </div>
12802       <div class="body">
12803         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
12804 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
12805 issues are known and should be solved:
12806
12807 <p><ul>
12808
12809 <li>The wicd package seen to
12810 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
12811 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
12812 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
12813 seem to be on the case.</li>
12814
12815 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
12816 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
12817 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
12818 maintainer is on the case.</li>
12819
12820 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
12821 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
12822 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
12823 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
12824 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
12825 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
12826 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
12827 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
12828
12829 </ul></p>
12830
12831 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
12832 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
12833 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
12834 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
12835
12836 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12837 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12838 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12839 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12840
12841 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
12842
12843       </div>
12844       <div class="tags">
12845
12846
12847         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>.
12848
12849
12850       </div>
12851     </div>
12852     <div class="padding"></div>
12853
12854     <div class="entry">
12855       <div class="title">
12856         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
12857       </div>
12858       <div class="date">
12859         22nd May 2010
12860       </div>
12861       <div class="body">
12862         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
12863 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
12864 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
12865 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
12866
12867 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
12868 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
12869 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
12870 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
12871 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
12872 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
12873 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
12874 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
12875 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
12876 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
12877 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
12878 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
12879 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
12880 going to work.</p>
12881
12882 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
12883 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
12884 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
12885 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
12886 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
12887 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
12888 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
12889 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
12890 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
12891 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
12892 Edu.</p>
12893
12894 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
12895 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
12896 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
12897 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
12898 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
12899 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
12900
12901 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
12902 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
12903
12904       </div>
12905       <div class="tags">
12906
12907
12908         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>.
12909
12910
12911       </div>
12912     </div>
12913     <div class="padding"></div>
12914
12915     <div class="entry">
12916       <div class="title">
12917         <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>
12918       </div>
12919       <div class="date">
12920         14th May 2010
12921       </div>
12922       <div class="body">
12923         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
12924 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
12925 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
12926 expected, if I am to believe the
12927 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12928 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
12929 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
12930 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
12931 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
12932 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
12933 version.</p>
12934
12935 More information about
12936 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12937 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
12938 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
12939 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12940
12941 <blockquote><pre>
12942 CONCURRENCY=none
12943 </pre></blockquote>
12944
12945 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12946 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12947 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12948 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12949
12950       </div>
12951       <div class="tags">
12952
12953
12954         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>.
12955
12956
12957       </div>
12958     </div>
12959     <div class="padding"></div>
12960
12961     <div class="entry">
12962       <div class="title">
12963         <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>
12964       </div>
12965       <div class="date">
12966         14th May 2010
12967       </div>
12968       <div class="body">
12969         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
12970 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
12971 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
12972 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
12973 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
12974 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
12975 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
12976 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
12977
12978 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
12979 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
12980 this on the collector host:</p>
12981
12982 <blockquote><pre>
12983 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
12984 </pre></blockquote>
12985
12986 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
12987 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
12988
12989 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
12990 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
12991 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
12992 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
12993 written yet.</p>
12994
12995       </div>
12996       <div class="tags">
12997
12998
12999         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>.
13000
13001
13002       </div>
13003     </div>
13004     <div class="padding"></div>
13005
13006     <div class="entry">
13007       <div class="title">
13008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
13009       </div>
13010       <div class="date">
13011         13th May 2010
13012       </div>
13013       <div class="body">
13014         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
13015 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
13016 has been
13017 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
13018
13019 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
13020 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
13021 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
13022 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
13023 based boot system.  Tollef is
13024 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
13025 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
13026 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
13027 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
13028 at the moment do not.</p>
13029
13030 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
13031 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
13032 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
13033 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
13034 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
13035 way forward.</p>
13036
13037 <p>In the mean time, based on the
13038 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
13039 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
13040 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
13041 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
13042 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
13043 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
13044 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
13045 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
13046
13047       </div>
13048       <div class="tags">
13049
13050
13051         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>.
13052
13053
13054       </div>
13055     </div>
13056     <div class="padding"></div>
13057
13058     <div class="entry">
13059       <div class="title">
13060         <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>
13061       </div>
13062       <div class="date">
13063          6th May 2010
13064       </div>
13065       <div class="body">
13066         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
13067 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
13068 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
13069 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
13070 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
13071 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
13072 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
13073
13074 <blockquote><pre>
13075 CONCURRENCY=makefile
13076 </pre></blockquote>
13077
13078 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
13079 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
13080 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
13081 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
13082 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
13083 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
13084 make this happen.</p>
13085
13086 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
13087 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
13088 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
13089 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
13090 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
13091
13092 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
13093 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
13094 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
13095 fix the remaining issues.</p>
13096
13097 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
13098 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
13099 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
13100 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
13101
13102       </div>
13103       <div class="tags">
13104
13105
13106         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>.
13107
13108
13109       </div>
13110     </div>
13111     <div class="padding"></div>
13112
13113     <div class="entry">
13114       <div class="title">
13115         <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>
13116       </div>
13117       <div class="date">
13118         27th July 2009
13119       </div>
13120       <div class="body">
13121         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
13122 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
13123 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
13124 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
13125 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
13126 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
13127 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
13128
13129 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
13130 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
13131 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
13132
13133       </div>
13134       <div class="tags">
13135
13136
13137         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>.
13138
13139
13140       </div>
13141     </div>
13142     <div class="padding"></div>
13143
13144     <div class="entry">
13145       <div class="title">
13146         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
13147       </div>
13148       <div class="date">
13149         22nd July 2009
13150       </div>
13151       <div class="body">
13152         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
13153 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
13154 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
13155 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
13156 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
13157 the package up to date.</p>
13158
13159 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
13160 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
13161 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
13162 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
13163 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
13164 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
13165 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
13166 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
13167 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
13168 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
13169 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
13170 working on the future release.</p>
13171
13172 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
13173 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
13174
13175       </div>
13176       <div class="tags">
13177
13178
13179         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>.
13180
13181
13182       </div>
13183     </div>
13184     <div class="padding"></div>
13185
13186     <div class="entry">
13187       <div class="title">
13188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
13189       </div>
13190       <div class="date">
13191         24th June 2009
13192       </div>
13193       <div class="body">
13194         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
13195 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
13196 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
13197 funded
13198 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
13199 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
13200 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
13201 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
13202 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
13203 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
13204
13205 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
13206 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
13207 boot:</p>
13208
13209 <ul>
13210
13211 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
13212
13213 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
13214    clock is in UTC.</li>
13215
13216 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
13217    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
13218    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
13219
13220 </ul>
13221
13222 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
13223 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
13224 Villegas</a>.
13225
13226 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
13227 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
13228 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
13229 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
13230 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
13231 using this.</p>
13232
13233 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
13234 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
13235 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
13236 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
13237 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
13238 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
13239 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
13240
13241       </div>
13242       <div class="tags">
13243
13244
13245         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>.
13246
13247
13248       </div>
13249     </div>
13250     <div class="padding"></div>
13251
13252     <div class="entry">
13253       <div class="title">
13254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
13255       </div>
13256       <div class="date">
13257         17th May 2009
13258       </div>
13259       <div class="body">
13260         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
13261 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
13262 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
13263 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
13264 dager siden kom
13265 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
13266 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
13267 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
13268 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
13269 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
13270
13271 <blockquote>
13272 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
13273 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
13274 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
13275 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
13276 </blockquote>
13277
13278 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
13279 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
13280 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
13281 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
13282 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
13283
13284 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
13285 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
13286 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
13287
13288       </div>
13289       <div class="tags">
13290
13291
13292         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>.
13293
13294
13295       </div>
13296     </div>
13297     <div class="padding"></div>
13298
13299     <div class="entry">
13300       <div class="title">
13301         <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>
13302       </div>
13303       <div class="date">
13304          7th May 2009
13305       </div>
13306       <div class="body">
13307         <p>Kom over
13308 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
13309 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
13310 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
13311 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
13312 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
13313 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
13314 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
13315
13316       </div>
13317       <div class="tags">
13318
13319
13320         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>.
13321
13322
13323       </div>
13324     </div>
13325     <div class="padding"></div>
13326
13327     <div class="entry">
13328       <div class="title">
13329         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
13330       </div>
13331       <div class="date">
13332          2nd May 2009
13333       </div>
13334       <div class="body">
13335         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
13336 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
13337 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
13338 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
13339 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
13340 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
13341 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
13342 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
13343 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
13344 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
13345 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
13346 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
13347 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
13348 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
13349 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
13350 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
13351 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
13352 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
13353 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
13354 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
13355
13356 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
13357 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
13358 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
13359 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
13360 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
13361 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
13362 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
13363 betydelige.</p>
13364
13365       </div>
13366       <div class="tags">
13367
13368
13369         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>.
13370
13371
13372       </div>
13373     </div>
13374     <div class="padding"></div>
13375
13376     <div class="entry">
13377       <div class="title">
13378         <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>
13379       </div>
13380       <div class="date">
13381          2nd May 2009
13382       </div>
13383       <div class="body">
13384         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
13385 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
13386 do not yet know them.</p>
13387
13388 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
13389 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
13390 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
13391 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
13392 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
13393 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
13394 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
13395 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
13396 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
13397 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
13398 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
13399
13400 <p>The second one is
13401 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
13402 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
13403 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
13404 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
13405 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
13406 and the company behind it is running
13407 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
13408 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
13409 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
13410 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
13411 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
13412 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
13413 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
13414 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
13415
13416 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
13417 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
13418 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
13419 surrounded by today.</p>
13420
13421       </div>
13422       <div class="tags">
13423
13424
13425         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>.
13426
13427
13428       </div>
13429     </div>
13430     <div class="padding"></div>
13431
13432     <div class="entry">
13433       <div class="title">
13434         <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>
13435       </div>
13436       <div class="date">
13437         28th April 2009
13438       </div>
13439       <div class="body">
13440         <p>Julien Blache
13441 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
13442 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
13443 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
13444 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
13445 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
13446 properties.</p>
13447
13448       </div>
13449       <div class="tags">
13450
13451
13452         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>.
13453
13454
13455       </div>
13456     </div>
13457     <div class="padding"></div>
13458
13459     <div class="entry">
13460       <div class="title">
13461         <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>
13462       </div>
13463       <div class="date">
13464         30th March 2009
13465       </div>
13466       <div class="body">
13467         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
13468 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
13469 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
13470 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
13471 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
13472 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
13473 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
13474 application.</p>
13475
13476 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
13477 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
13478 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
13479 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
13480 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
13481 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
13482 blocked from doing so.</p>
13483
13484 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
13485 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
13486 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
13487 requirements change.</p>
13488
13489 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
13490 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
13491 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
13492
13493       </div>
13494       <div class="tags">
13495
13496
13497         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>.
13498
13499
13500       </div>
13501     </div>
13502     <div class="padding"></div>
13503
13504     <div class="entry">
13505       <div class="title">
13506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
13507       </div>
13508       <div class="date">
13509         29th March 2009
13510       </div>
13511       <div class="body">
13512         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
13513 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
13514 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
13515 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
13516 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
13517 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
13518 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
13519 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
13520 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
13521 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
13522 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
13523 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
13524 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
13525 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
13526 now. :)</p>
13527
13528       </div>
13529       <div class="tags">
13530
13531
13532         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>.
13533
13534
13535       </div>
13536     </div>
13537     <div class="padding"></div>
13538
13539     <div class="entry">
13540       <div class="title">
13541         <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>
13542       </div>
13543       <div class="date">
13544         29th March 2009
13545       </div>
13546       <div class="body">
13547         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
13548 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
13549 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
13550 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
13551 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
13552 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
13553
13554 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
13555 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
13556 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
13557 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
13558 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
13559 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
13560 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
13561 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
13562 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
13563 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
13564 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
13565 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
13566 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
13567
13568 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
13569 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
13570 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
13571 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
13572
13573 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
13574 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
13575
13576 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
13577 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
13578 new IETF work group?</p>
13579
13580       </div>
13581       <div class="tags">
13582
13583
13584         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>.
13585
13586
13587       </div>
13588     </div>
13589     <div class="padding"></div>
13590
13591     <div class="entry">
13592       <div class="title">
13593         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
13594       </div>
13595       <div class="date">
13596         15th February 2009
13597       </div>
13598       <div class="body">
13599         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
13600 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
13601 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
13602 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
13603 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
13604 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
13605 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
13606 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
13607 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
13608 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
13609 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
13610 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
13611
13612       </div>
13613       <div class="tags">
13614
13615
13616         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>.
13617
13618
13619       </div>
13620     </div>
13621     <div class="padding"></div>
13622
13623     <div class="entry">
13624       <div class="title">
13625         <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>
13626       </div>
13627       <div class="date">
13628          7th December 2008
13629       </div>
13630       <div class="body">
13631         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
13632 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
13633 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
13634 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
13635 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
13636 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
13637 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
13638 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
13639
13640 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
13641 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
13642 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
13643 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
13644 of these cards.</p>
13645
13646       </div>
13647       <div class="tags">
13648
13649
13650         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>.
13651
13652
13653       </div>
13654     </div>
13655     <div class="padding"></div>
13656
13657     <div class="entry">
13658       <div class="title">
13659         <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>
13660       </div>
13661       <div class="date">
13662         25th November 2008
13663       </div>
13664       <div class="body">
13665         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
13666 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
13667 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
13668 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
13669 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
13670 notes are available on
13671 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
13672 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
13673 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
13674 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
13675 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
13676 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
13677 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
13678 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
13679 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
13680
13681 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
13682 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
13683
13684       </div>
13685       <div class="tags">
13686
13687
13688         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>.
13689
13690
13691       </div>
13692     </div>
13693     <div class="padding"></div>
13694
13695     <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>
13696     <div id="sidebar">
13697
13698
13699
13700 <h2>Archive</h2>
13701 <ul>
13702
13703 <li>2019
13704 <ul>
13705
13706 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/01/">January (3)</a></li>
13707
13708 </ul></li>
13709
13710 <li>2018
13711 <ul>
13712
13713 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
13714
13715 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
13716
13717 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (5)</a></li>
13718
13719 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/04/">April (3)</a></li>
13720
13721 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13722
13723 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/07/">July (5)</a></li>
13724
13725 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13726
13727 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/09/">September (3)</a></li>
13728
13729 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/10/">October (5)</a></li>
13730
13731 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/11/">November (2)</a></li>
13732
13733 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/12/">December (4)</a></li>
13734
13735 </ul></li>
13736
13737 <li>2017
13738 <ul>
13739
13740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
13741
13742 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
13743
13744 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
13745
13746 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
13747
13748 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
13749
13750 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
13751
13752 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
13753
13754 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
13755
13756 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
13757
13758 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13759
13760 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
13761
13762 </ul></li>
13763
13764 <li>2016
13765 <ul>
13766
13767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
13768
13769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
13770
13771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
13772
13773 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
13774
13775 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
13776
13777 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13778
13779 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
13780
13781 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
13782
13783 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
13784
13785 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
13786
13787 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
13788
13789 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
13790
13791 </ul></li>
13792
13793 <li>2015
13794 <ul>
13795
13796 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
13797
13798 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
13799
13800 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
13801
13802 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
13803
13804 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
13805
13806 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
13807
13808 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
13809
13810 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
13811
13812 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
13813
13814 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
13815
13816 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
13817
13818 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13819
13820 </ul></li>
13821
13822 <li>2014
13823 <ul>
13824
13825 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
13826
13827 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
13828
13829 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
13830
13831 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
13832
13833 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
13834
13835 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13836
13837 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
13838
13839 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
13840
13841 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
13842
13843 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
13844
13845 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13846
13847 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
13848
13849 </ul></li>
13850
13851 <li>2013
13852 <ul>
13853
13854 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
13855
13856 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
13857
13858 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
13859
13860 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
13861
13862 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13863
13864 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
13865
13866 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
13867
13868 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13869
13870 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
13871
13872 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
13873
13874 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
13875
13876 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13877
13878 </ul></li>
13879
13880 <li>2012
13881 <ul>
13882
13883 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
13884
13885 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
13886
13887 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
13888
13889 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
13890
13891 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
13892
13893 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
13894
13895 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
13896
13897 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13898
13899 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
13900
13901 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
13902
13903 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
13904
13905 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13906
13907 </ul></li>
13908
13909 <li>2011
13910 <ul>
13911
13912 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
13913
13914 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
13915
13916 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
13917
13918 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
13919
13920 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
13921
13922 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13923
13924 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
13925
13926 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13927
13928 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
13929
13930 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13931
13932 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13933
13934 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
13935
13936 </ul></li>
13937
13938 <li>2010
13939 <ul>
13940
13941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
13942
13943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
13944
13945 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
13946
13947 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
13948
13949 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13950
13951 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
13952
13953 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
13954
13955 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
13956
13957 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
13958
13959 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
13960
13961 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
13962
13963 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
13964
13965 </ul></li>
13966
13967 <li>2009
13968 <ul>
13969
13970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
13971
13972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
13973
13974 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
13975
13976 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
13977
13978 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13979
13980 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
13981
13982 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
13983
13984 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13985
13986 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
13987
13988 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13989
13990 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13991
13992 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13993
13994 </ul></li>
13995
13996 <li>2008
13997 <ul>
13998
13999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
14000
14001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
14002
14003 </ul></li>
14004
14005 </ul>
14006
14007
14008
14009 <h2>Tags</h2>
14010 <ul>
14011
14012  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (16)</a></li>
14013
14014  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
14015
14016  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
14017
14018  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
14019
14020  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (10)</a></li>
14021
14022  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
14023
14024  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
14025
14026  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
14027
14028  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (166)</a></li>
14029
14030  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (158)</a></li>
14031
14032  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (4)</a></li>
14033
14034  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
14035
14036  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (17)</a></li>
14037
14038  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (25)</a></li>
14039
14040  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
14041
14042  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (397)</a></li>
14043
14044  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
14045
14046  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (14)</a></li>
14047
14048  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (33)</a></li>
14049
14050  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
14051
14052  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (20)</a></li>
14053
14054  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
14055
14056  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
14057
14058  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (16)</a></li>
14059
14060  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (20)</a></li>
14061
14062  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi (4)</a></li>
14063
14064  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
14065
14066  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (4)</a></li>
14067
14068  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
14069
14070  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
14071
14072  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
14073
14074  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
14075
14076  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (42)</a></li>
14077
14078  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (11)</a></li>
14079
14080  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (301)</a></li>
14081
14082  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (192)</a></li>
14083
14084  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (34)</a></li>
14085
14086  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
14087
14088  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (73)</a></li>
14089
14090  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (108)</a></li>
14091
14092  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
14093
14094  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
14095
14096  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
14097
14098  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
14099
14100  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (11)</a></li>
14101
14102  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
14103
14104  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (6)</a></li>
14105
14106  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
14107
14108  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (55)</a></li>
14109
14110  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
14111
14112  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
14113
14114  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (58)</a></li>
14115
14116  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (6)</a></li>
14117
14118  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (12)</a></li>
14119
14120  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (55)</a></li>
14121
14122  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (4)</a></li>
14123
14124  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
14125
14126  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
14127
14128  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (15)</a></li>
14129
14130  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (73)</a></li>
14131
14132  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
14133
14134  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (42)</a></li>
14135
14136 </ul>
14137
14138
14139     </div>
14140     <p style="text-align: right">
14141  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
14142 </p>
14143
14144   </body>
14145 </html>