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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/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         27th October 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The
  32 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
  33 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
  34 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
  35 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
  36 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
  37 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
  38 of a plan to simplify the build system for
  39 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
  40 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
  41 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
  42 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
  43 Raspberry Pi.</p>
  44
  45 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
  46 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
  47 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
  48 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
  49 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
  50 <a href=http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html"">Debian
  51 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
  52 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
  53 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
  54 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
  55 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
  56 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
  57 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
  58 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
  59 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
  60 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
  61 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
  62 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
  63 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
  64 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
  65 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
  66 available from
  67 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
  68 upstream project page</a>.</p>
  69
  70 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
  71 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
  72 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
  73 list:</p>
  74
  75 <p><pre>
  76 #!/bin/sh
  77 set -e # Exit on first error
  78 rootdir="$1"
  79 cd "$rootdir"
  80 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
  81 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
  82 EOF
  83 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
  84 # install a kernel somewhere too.
  85 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
  86     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
  87 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
  88 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
  89 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
  90 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
  91 </pre></p>
  92
  93 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
  94 to build the image:</p>
  95
  96 <pre>
  97 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
  98     --variant minbase \
  99     --arch armel \
 100     --distribution jessie \
 101     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 102     --image test.img \
 103     --size 600M \
 104     --bootsize 64M \
 105     --boottype vfat \
 106     --log-level debug \
 107     --verbose \
 108     --no-kernel \
 109     --no-extlinux \
 110     --root-password raspberry \
 111     --hostname raspberrypi \
 112     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 113     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 114     --package netbase \
 115     --package git-core \
 116     --package binutils \
 117     --package ca-certificates \
 118     --package wget \
 119     --package kmod
 120 </pre></p>
 121
 122 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 123 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 124 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 125 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 126 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 127 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 128 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 129
 130 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 131 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 132 build dependency list.</p>
 133
 134 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 135 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 136 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 137 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 138
 139       </div>
 140       <div class="tags">
 141
 142
 143         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>.
 144
 145
 146       </div>
 147     </div>
 148     <div class="padding"></div>
 149
 150     <div class="entry">
 151       <div class="title">
 152         <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>
 153       </div>
 154       <div class="date">
 155         15th October 2013
 156       </div>
 157       <div class="body">
 158         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
 159 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
 160 these. :)</p>
 161
 162 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
 163 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
 164 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
 165 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
 166 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
 167 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
 168 hope you will to. :)</p>
 169
 170 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
 171 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
 172 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
 173 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
 174 donated.  Are you next?</p>
 175
 176 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
 177 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
 178 statement under the heading
 179 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
 180 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
 181 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
 182 too.</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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</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/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
 198       </div>
 199       <div class="date">
 200         27th September 2013
 201       </div>
 202       <div class="body">
 203         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 204 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 205 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 206 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 207
 208 <ul>
 209
 210 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 211 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 212
 213 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 214 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 215
 216 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 217 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 218 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 219 (Youtube)</li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 222 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 223
 224 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 225 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 226
 227 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 228 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 229 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 230
 231 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 232 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 233 (Youtube)</li>
 234
 235 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 236 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 237
 238 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 239 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 240
 241 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 242 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 243 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 244
 245 </ul>
 246
 247 <p>A larger list is available from
 248 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 249 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 250
 251 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 252 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 253 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 254 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 255 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 256 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 257 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 258 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 259 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 260 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 261 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 262
 263       </div>
 264       <div class="tags">
 265
 266
 267         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>.
 268
 269
 270       </div>
 271     </div>
 272     <div class="padding"></div>
 273
 274     <div class="entry">
 275       <div class="title">
 276         <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>
 277       </div>
 278       <div class="date">
 279         10th September 2013
 280       </div>
 281       <div class="body">
 282         <p>I was introduced to the
 283 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 284 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 285 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 286 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 287 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 288 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 289 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 290 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 291
 292 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 293 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 294 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 295 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 296 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 297
 298 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 299 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 300 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 301 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 302 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 303 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 304 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 305 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 306 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 307 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 308 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 309 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 310 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 311 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 312 missing in Debian).</p>
 313
 314 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 315 scripts
 316 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 317 and a administrative web interface
 318 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 319 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 320 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 321 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 322 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 323 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 324 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 325 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 326 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 327 this is really working yet, see
 328 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 329 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 330 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 331 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 332 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 333 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 334 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 335
 336 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 337 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 338 at.</p>
 339
 340 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 341
 342 <ol>
 343
 344 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 345 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 346 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 347 to the Debian installer:<p>
 348 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 349
 350 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 351 install on.</li>
 352
 353 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 354 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 355
 356 </ol>
 357
 358 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 359
 360 <ol>
 361
 362 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 363 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 364 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 365 <pre>
 366 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 367 </pre></li>
 368 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 369 <pre>
 370 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 371    apt-key add -
 372 apt-get update
 373 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 374 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 375 </pre></li>
 376 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 377
 378 </ol>
 379
 380 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 381 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 382 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 383 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 384 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 385
 386 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 387 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 388 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 389 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 390
 391 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 392 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 393 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 394 irc.debian.org and the
 395 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 396 mailing list</a>.</p>
 397
 398 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 399 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 400 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 401 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 402 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 403 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 404
 405       </div>
 406       <div class="tags">
 407
 408
 409         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>.
 410
 411
 412       </div>
 413     </div>
 414     <div class="padding"></div>
 415
 416     <div class="entry">
 417       <div class="title">
 418         <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>
 419       </div>
 420       <div class="date">
 421         18th August 2013
 422       </div>
 423       <div class="body">
 424         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 425 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 426 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 427 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 428 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 429 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 430 currently on the disk.</p>
 431
 432 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 433 <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>
 434 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 435 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 436 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 437 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 438 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 439 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 440 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 441 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 442 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 443 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 444 the broken disks.</p>
 445
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="tags">
 448
 449
 450         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>.
 451
 452
 453       </div>
 454     </div>
 455     <div class="padding"></div>
 456
 457     <div class="entry">
 458       <div class="title">
 459         <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>
 460       </div>
 461       <div class="date">
 462         17th July 2013
 463       </div>
 464       <div class="body">
 465         <p>Today I switched to
 466 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
 467 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
 468 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
 469 <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
 470 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
 471 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
 472 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
 473 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
 474 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
 475 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
 476 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
 477 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
 478 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
 479 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
 480 station from now on.</p>
 481
 482 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
 483 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
 484 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
 485 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
 486 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
 487 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
 488 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
 489 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
 490 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
 491 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
 492 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
 493 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
 494
 495 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
 496 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
 497 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
 498 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
 499 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
 500 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
 501 parameters are tuned:</p>
 502
 503 <ul>
 504
 505 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
 506     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
 507
 508 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
 509     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
 510     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
 511
 512 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
 513     systems.</li>
 514
 515 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
 516     /etc/fstab.</li>
 517
 518 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
 519
 520 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
 521     cron.daily).</li>
 522
 523 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
 524     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
 525
 526 </ul>
 527
 528 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
 529 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
 530 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
 531 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
 532 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
 533 from getting the data on the disk (see
 534 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
 535 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
 536 right thing to do.</p>
 537
 538 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
 539 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
 540 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
 541
 542 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
 543 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
 544 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
 545 instead of during my work.</p>
 546
 547 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
 548 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
 549
 550 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
 551 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
 552 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
 553
 554 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
 555 there.</p>
 556
 557 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
 558 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
 559 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
 560 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
 561 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
 562 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
 563 back.</p>
 564
 565       </div>
 566       <div class="tags">
 567
 568
 569         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>.
 570
 571
 572       </div>
 573     </div>
 574     <div class="padding"></div>
 575
 576     <div class="entry">
 577       <div class="title">
 578         <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>
 579       </div>
 580       <div class="date">
 581         10th July 2013
 582       </div>
 583       <div class="body">
 584         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
 585 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
 586 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
 587 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
 588 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
 589 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
 590 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
 591 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
 592
 593 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
 594 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
 595 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
 596 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
 597 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
 598 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
 599 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
 600 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
 601 lock up when I download a new
 602 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
 603 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
 604 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
 605
 606 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 607 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
 608 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 609 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
 610 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 611 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 612
 613 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 614 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
 615 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 616 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
 617 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 618 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 619
 620 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
 621 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
 622 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
 623 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
 624 exist).</p>
 625
 626       </div>
 627       <div class="tags">
 628
 629
 630         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>.
 631
 632
 633       </div>
 634     </div>
 635     <div class="padding"></div>
 636
 637     <div class="entry">
 638       <div class="title">
 639         <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>
 640       </div>
 641       <div class="date">
 642          9th July 2013
 643       </div>
 644       <div class="body">
 645         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
 646 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
 647 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
 648 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
 649 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 650 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
 651 Bitraf</a>.</p>
 652
 653 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
 654 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
 655 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
 656 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
 657 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
 658
 659       </div>
 660       <div class="tags">
 661
 662
 663         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>.
 664
 665
 666       </div>
 667     </div>
 668     <div class="padding"></div>
 669
 670     <div class="entry">
 671       <div class="title">
 672         <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>
 673       </div>
 674       <div class="date">
 675          5th July 2013
 676       </div>
 677       <div class="body">
 678         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
 679 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
 680 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
 681 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
 682 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
 683 ended up picking a
 684 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
 685 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
 686 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
 687 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
 688 on that below.</p>
 689
 690 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 691 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 692 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 693 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 694 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 695 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
 696 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
 697 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
 698 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
 699
 700 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
 701 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
 702 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
 703 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
 704 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
 705 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
 706 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
 707
 708 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
 709 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
 710
 711 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
 712 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
 713 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
 714 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
 715 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
 716 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
 717 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
 718 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
 719 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
 720 kernel developers as
 721 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
 722 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
 723 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
 724 Lenovo forums, both for
 725 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
 726 2012-11-10</a> and for
 727 <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
 728 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
 729 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
 730 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
 731 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
 732 There is even a
 733 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
 734 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
 735 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
 736
 737 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
 738 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
 739 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
 740 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
 741 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
 742 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
 743 fixed. :)</p>
 744
 745       </div>
 746       <div class="tags">
 747
 748
 749         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>.
 750
 751
 752       </div>
 753     </div>
 754     <div class="padding"></div>
 755
 756     <div class="entry">
 757       <div class="title">
 758         <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>
 759       </div>
 760       <div class="date">
 761          4th July 2013
 762       </div>
 763       <div class="body">
 764         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
 765 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
 766 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
 767 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
 768 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
 769 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
 770 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
 771 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
 772 with an expencive door stop.</p>
 773
 774 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 775 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 776 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 777 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 778 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 779 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
 780 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
 781
 782 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
 783 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
 784 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
 785 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
 786 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
 787 new laptop now. :)</p>
 788
 789 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
 790
 791       </div>
 792       <div class="tags">
 793
 794
 795         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>.
 796
 797
 798       </div>
 799     </div>
 800     <div class="padding"></div>
 801
 802     <div class="entry">
 803       <div class="title">
 804         <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>
 805       </div>
 806       <div class="date">
 807         25th June 2013
 808       </div>
 809       <div class="body">
 810         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
 811 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
 812 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
 813 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
 814 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
 815 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
 816 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
 817 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
 818 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
 819 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
 820 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
 821
 822 <p><pre>
 823 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 824 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
 825 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
 826 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
 827 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
 828 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
 829 firmware-ipw2x00
 830 firmware-ipw2x00
 831 Preconfiguring packages ...
 832 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
 833 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
 834 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
 835 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
 836 #
 837 </pre></p>
 838
 839 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
 840 printed instead:</p>
 841
 842 <p><pre>
 843 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 844 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 845 #
 846 </pre></p>
 847
 848 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
 849 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
 850
 851 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
 852 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
 853 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
 854 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
 855 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
 856 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
 857 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
 858 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
 859 machine.</p>
 860
 861 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
 862 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
 863 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
 864 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
 865 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
 866 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
 867
 868       </div>
 869       <div class="tags">
 870
 871
 872         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>.
 873
 874
 875       </div>
 876     </div>
 877     <div class="padding"></div>
 878
 879     <div class="entry">
 880       <div class="title">
 881         <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>
 882       </div>
 883       <div class="date">
 884         11th June 2013
 885       </div>
 886       <div class="body">
 887         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 888 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 889 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 890 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 891 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 892 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 893 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 894 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 895 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 896 i915 driver used by the
 897 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 898 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 899
 900 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 901 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 902 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 903 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 904 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 905
 906 <pre>
 907 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 908 update-initramfs -u -k all
 909 </pre>
 910
 911 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 912 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 913 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 914 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 915 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 916 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 917 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 918 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 919 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 920 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 921 number.</p>
 922
 923 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 924 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 925
 926 <p><pre>
 927 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 928     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 929     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 930  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 931  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 932     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 933  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 934     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 935  Latency: 0
 936  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 937  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 938  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 939  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 940  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 941  Capabilities: <access denied>
 942  Kernel driver in use: i915
 943 </pre></p>
 944
 945 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 946
 947 <p><pre>
 948 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 949        ...
 950         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 951         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 952        ...
 953 }
 954 </pre></p>
 955
 956 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 957 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 958 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 959 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 960 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 961 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 962 yet shown up in
 963 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 964 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
 965 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
 966 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
 967 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
 968 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
 969
 970 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
 971 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
 972 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
 973 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
 974 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
 975 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
 976 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
 977 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
 978 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
 979 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
 980 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
 981 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
 982
 983 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
 984 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
 985 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
 986 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
 987 backlight.</p>
 988
 989       </div>
 990       <div class="tags">
 991
 992
 993         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>.
 994
 995
 996       </div>
 997     </div>
 998     <div class="padding"></div>
 999
1000     <div class="entry">
1001       <div class="title">
1002         <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>
1003       </div>
1004       <div class="date">
1005         27th May 2013
1006       </div>
1007       <div class="body">
1008         <p>Two days ago, I asked
1009 <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
1010 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
1011 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
1012 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
1013 and Windows 8.</p>
1014
1015 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
1016 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
1017 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
1018 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
1019 enough to tell.</p>
1020
1021 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
1022 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
1023 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
1024 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
1025 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
1026 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
1027 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
1028 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
1029 to follow.</p>
1030
1031 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
1032 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
1033 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
1034 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
1035 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
1036 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
1037 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
1038 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
1039
1040 <p>I've updated the
1041 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
1042 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
1043 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
1044 machine.</p>
1045
1046 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
1047 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
1048
1049       </div>
1050       <div class="tags">
1051
1052
1053         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>.
1054
1055
1056       </div>
1057     </div>
1058     <div class="padding"></div>
1059
1060     <div class="entry">
1061       <div class="title">
1062         <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>
1063       </div>
1064       <div class="date">
1065         25th May 2013
1066       </div>
1067       <div class="body">
1068         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
1069 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
1070 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
1071 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
1072 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
1073 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
1074
1075 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
1076 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
1077 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
1078 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
1079 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
1080 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
1081 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
1082 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
1083 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
1084 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
1085
1086 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
1087 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1088 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
1089 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
1090 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
1091 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
1092
1093 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
1094 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
1095 on new Laptops?</p>
1096
1097       </div>
1098       <div class="tags">
1099
1100
1101         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>.
1102
1103
1104       </div>
1105     </div>
1106     <div class="padding"></div>
1107
1108     <div class="entry">
1109       <div class="title">
1110         <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>
1111       </div>
1112       <div class="date">
1113         17th May 2013
1114       </div>
1115       <div class="body">
1116         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
1117 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
1118 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
1119 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
1120 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
1121 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
1122 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
1123 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
1124 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
1125 donate some money</a>.
1126
1127 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
1128 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
1129 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
1130 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
1131 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
1132
1133 <p>The script,
1134 <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/>
1135 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
1136 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
1137 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
1138
1139 <ol>
1140
1141 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
1142 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
1143 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
1144     our configuration.</li>
1145 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
1146     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
1147     according to the profile specified in the config above,
1148     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
1149 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
1150     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
1151 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
1152
1153 </ol>
1154
1155 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
1156 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
1157 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
1158 the needed packages.</p>
1159
1160 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
1161 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
1162 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
1163 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
1164 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
1165 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
1166
1167 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
1168 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
1169 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
1170
1171 <p><pre>
1172 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1173 DESKTOP="lxde"
1174 </pre></p>
1175
1176 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1177 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1178 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1179 boot.</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/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
1195       </div>
1196       <div class="date">
1197         11th May 2013
1198       </div>
1199       <div class="body">
1200         <P>In January,
1201 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1202 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1203 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1204 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1205 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1206 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1207 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1208 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1209 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1210 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1211 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1212 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1213
1214 <p><table>
1215 <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>
1216 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1217 <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>
1218 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1219 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1220 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1221 <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>
1222 <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>
1223 <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>
1224 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1225 </table></p>
1226
1227 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1228 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1229 available in experimental.</p>
1230
1231 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1232 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1233 for LEGO designers.</p>
1234
1235       </div>
1236       <div class="tags">
1237
1238
1239         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>.
1240
1241
1242       </div>
1243     </div>
1244     <div class="padding"></div>
1245
1246     <div class="entry">
1247       <div class="title">
1248         <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>
1249       </div>
1250       <div class="date">
1251          5th May 2013
1252       </div>
1253       <div class="body">
1254         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1255 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1256 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1257 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1258 soon.</p>
1259
1260 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1261 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1262 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1263 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1264 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1265 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1266 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1267 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1268 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1269 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1270 Edu.</a>
1271
1272 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1273 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1274 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1275 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1276 follow.<p>
1277
1278       </div>
1279       <div class="tags">
1280
1281
1282         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>.
1283
1284
1285       </div>
1286     </div>
1287     <div class="padding"></div>
1288
1289     <div class="entry">
1290       <div class="title">
1291         <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>
1292       </div>
1293       <div class="date">
1294          3rd April 2013
1295       </div>
1296       <div class="body">
1297         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1298 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1299 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1300 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1301
1302 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1303 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1304 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1305 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1306 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1307 BTS. :)</p>
1308
1309       </div>
1310       <div class="tags">
1311
1312
1313         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>.
1314
1315
1316       </div>
1317     </div>
1318     <div class="padding"></div>
1319
1320     <div class="entry">
1321       <div class="title">
1322         <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>
1323       </div>
1324       <div class="date">
1325          2nd February 2013
1326       </div>
1327       <div class="body">
1328         <p>My
1329 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1330 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1331 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1332 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1333 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1334 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1335 version too.</p>
1336
1337 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1338 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1339 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1340 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1341 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1342 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1343 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1344 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1345
1346 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1347 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1348 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1349 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1350 it. :)</p>
1351
1352 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1353 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1354 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1355
1356       </div>
1357       <div class="tags">
1358
1359
1360         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>.
1361
1362
1363       </div>
1364     </div>
1365     <div class="padding"></div>
1366
1367     <div class="entry">
1368       <div class="title">
1369         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1370       </div>
1371       <div class="date">
1372         22nd January 2013
1373       </div>
1374       <div class="body">
1375         <p>Yesterday, I
1376 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1377 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1378 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1379 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1380 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1381 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1382 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1383 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1384 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1385 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1386 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1387 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1388 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1389
1390 <pre>
1391 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
1392 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
1393 </pre>
1394
1395 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
1396 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
1397 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
1398 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
1399
1400 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
1401 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
1402 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
1403 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
1404 word.</p>
1405
1406 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
1407 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
1408 process.</p>
1409
1410 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
1411 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
1412
1413       </div>
1414       <div class="tags">
1415
1416
1417         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>.
1418
1419
1420       </div>
1421     </div>
1422     <div class="padding"></div>
1423
1424     <div class="entry">
1425       <div class="title">
1426         <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>
1427       </div>
1428       <div class="date">
1429         21st January 2013
1430       </div>
1431       <div class="body">
1432         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
1433 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
1434 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
1435 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
1436 it, fetch the
1437 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
1438 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
1439 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
1440 autostart script.</p>
1441
1442 <p>The design is simple:</p>
1443
1444 <ul>
1445
1446 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
1447 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
1448
1449 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
1450 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
1451 initially did.</li>
1452
1453 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
1454 the APT database, a database
1455 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
1456 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
1457
1458 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
1459 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
1460 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
1461 package or packages.</li>
1462
1463 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
1464 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
1465
1466 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
1467 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
1468
1469 </ul>
1470
1471 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
1472 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
1473 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
1474 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
1475
1476 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
1477 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
1478 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
1479 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
1480 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
1481
1482 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
1483 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
1484 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
1485 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
1486 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
1487 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
1488 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
1489 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
1490
1491 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
1492 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
1493 '<tt>svn checkout
1494 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
1495 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
1496 devscripts package.</p>
1497
1498 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
1499 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
1500 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
1501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
1502 instructions</a> for details.</p>
1503
1504       </div>
1505       <div class="tags">
1506
1507
1508         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>.
1509
1510
1511       </div>
1512     </div>
1513     <div class="padding"></div>
1514
1515     <div class="entry">
1516       <div class="title">
1517         <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>
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="date">
1520         19th January 2013
1521       </div>
1522       <div class="body">
1523         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
1524 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
1525 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
1526 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
1527 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
1528 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
1529 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
1530 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
1531 not a durable solution.
1532
1533 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
1534 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
1535
1536 <ul>
1537
1538 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
1539   than A4).</li>
1540 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
1541 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
1542 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
1543 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
1544 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
1545 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
1546 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
1547 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
1548 size).</li>
1549 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
1550   X.org packages.</li>
1551 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
1552   the time).
1553
1554 </ul>
1555
1556 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
1557 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
1558 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
1559 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
1560 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
1561 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
1562 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
1563 still be useful.</p>
1564
1565 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
1566 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
1567 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
1568 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
1569 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
1570 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
1571
1572       </div>
1573       <div class="tags">
1574
1575
1576         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>.
1577
1578
1579       </div>
1580     </div>
1581     <div class="padding"></div>
1582
1583     <div class="entry">
1584       <div class="title">
1585         <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>
1586       </div>
1587       <div class="date">
1588         18th January 2013
1589       </div>
1590       <div class="body">
1591         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
1592 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
1593 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
1594 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
1595 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
1596 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
1597 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
1598
1599 <pre>
1600 #!/usr/bin/python
1601 import sys
1602 import apt
1603 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1604     cache = apt.Cache()
1605     cache.open(None)
1606     thepkgs = []
1607     for pkg in cache:
1608         version = pkg.candidate
1609         if version is None:
1610             version = pkg.installed
1611         if version is None:
1612             continue
1613         record = version.record
1614         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
1615             continue
1616         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
1617         for t in mime_types:
1618             t = t.rstrip().strip()
1619             if t == mimetype:
1620                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
1621     return thepkgs
1622 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
1623 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
1624     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
1625 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
1626 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1627     print "  %s" %pkg
1628 </pre>
1629
1630 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
1631
1632 <pre>
1633 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
1634 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
1635   gecko-mediaplayer
1636 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
1637 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
1638   browser-plugin-gnash
1639 %
1640 </pre>
1641
1642 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
1643 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
1644 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
1645 anyone working on adding it?</p>
1646
1647 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
1648 request for icweasel support for this feature is
1649 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
1650 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
1651 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
1652 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
1653
1654       </div>
1655       <div class="tags">
1656
1657
1658         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1659
1660
1661       </div>
1662     </div>
1663     <div class="padding"></div>
1664
1665     <div class="entry">
1666       <div class="title">
1667         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
1668       </div>
1669       <div class="date">
1670         16th January 2013
1671       </div>
1672       <div class="body">
1673         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
1674 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
1675 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1676 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1677 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
1678 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1679 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1680 downloaded by the browser.</p>
1681
1682 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1683 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1684 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
1685 can be found on the
1686 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
1687 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
1688 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1689 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1690 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
1691
1692 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
1693
1694 <pre>
1695   count MIME type
1696   ----- -----------------------
1697      32 text/plain
1698      30 audio/mpeg
1699      29 image/png
1700      28 image/jpeg
1701      27 application/ogg
1702      26 audio/x-mp3
1703      25 image/tiff
1704      25 image/gif
1705      22 image/bmp
1706      22 audio/x-wav
1707      20 audio/x-flac
1708      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1709      18 video/x-ms-asf
1710      18 audio/x-musepack
1711      18 audio/x-mpeg
1712      18 application/x-ogg
1713      17 video/mpeg
1714      17 audio/x-scpls
1715      17 audio/ogg
1716      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1717 </pre>
1718
1719 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
1720
1721 <pre>
1722   count MIME type
1723   ----- -----------------------
1724      33 text/plain
1725      32 image/png
1726      32 image/jpeg
1727      29 audio/mpeg
1728      27 image/gif
1729      26 image/tiff
1730      26 application/ogg
1731      25 audio/x-mp3
1732      22 image/bmp
1733      21 audio/x-wav
1734      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1735      19 audio/x-mpeg
1736      18 video/mpeg
1737      18 audio/x-scpls
1738      18 audio/x-flac
1739      18 application/x-ogg
1740      17 video/x-ms-asf
1741      17 text/html
1742      17 audio/x-musepack
1743      16 image/x-xbitmap
1744 </pre>
1745
1746 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1747
1748 <pre>
1749   count MIME type
1750   ----- -----------------------
1751      31 text/plain
1752      31 image/png
1753      31 image/jpeg
1754      29 audio/mpeg
1755      28 application/ogg
1756      27 image/gif
1757      26 image/tiff
1758      26 audio/x-mp3
1759      23 audio/x-wav
1760      22 image/bmp
1761      21 audio/x-flac
1762      20 audio/x-mpegurl
1763      19 audio/x-mpeg
1764      18 video/x-ms-asf
1765      18 video/mpeg
1766      18 audio/x-scpls
1767      18 application/x-ogg
1768      17 audio/x-musepack
1769      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1770      16 video/x-msvideo
1771 </pre>
1772
1773 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1774 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
1775 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1776 issues.</p>
1777
1778 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
1779 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
1780
1781       </div>
1782       <div class="tags">
1783
1784
1785         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>.
1786
1787
1788       </div>
1789     </div>
1790     <div class="padding"></div>
1791
1792     <div class="entry">
1793       <div class="title">
1794         <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>
1795       </div>
1796       <div class="date">
1797         15th January 2013
1798       </div>
1799       <div class="body">
1800         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1801 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1802 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1803 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1804 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1805 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1806 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1807 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1808 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1809 packages.</p>
1810
1811 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1812 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1813 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1814 modalias.</p>
1815
1816 <p><blockquote>
1817 Package: package-name
1818 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1819 </blockquote></p>
1820
1821 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1822 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1823
1824 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1825 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1826
1827 <p><blockquote>
1828 Package: cheese
1829 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1830 </blockquote></p>
1831
1832 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1833 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1834
1835 <p><blockquote>
1836 Package: pcmciautils
1837 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1838 </blockquote></p>
1839
1840 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1841 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1842
1843 <p><blockquote>
1844 Package: colorhug-client
1845 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1846 </blockquote></p>
1847
1848 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1849 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1850 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1851
1852 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1853 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1854 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1855 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1856 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1857 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1858 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1859 Raring.</p>
1860
1861 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1862 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1863 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1864 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1865 try the
1866 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1867 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1868 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1869 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1870
1871 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1872 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1873
1874 <p><blockquote>
1875 % ./hw-support-lookup
1876 <br>yubikey-personalization
1877 <br>%
1878 </blockquote></p>
1879
1880 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1881 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1882
1883 <p><blockquote>
1884 % ./hw-support-lookup
1885 <br>pcmciautils
1886 <br>%
1887 </blockquote></p>
1888
1889 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1890 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1891 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1892
1893 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1894 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1895 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1896 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1897 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1898 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1899 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1900 see if it work.</p>
1901
1902 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1903 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1904 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1905 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1906
1907       </div>
1908       <div class="tags">
1909
1910
1911         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>.
1912
1913
1914       </div>
1915     </div>
1916     <div class="padding"></div>
1917
1918     <div class="entry">
1919       <div class="title">
1920         <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>
1921       </div>
1922       <div class="date">
1923         14th January 2013
1924       </div>
1925       <div class="body">
1926         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1927 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1928 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1929 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1930 in
1931 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1932 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1933
1934 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1935
1936 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1937 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1938 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1939 &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;,
1940 &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
1941 &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;.
1942
1943 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1944 this shell script:</p>
1945
1946 <pre>
1947 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1948 </pre>
1949
1950 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1951 using modinfo:</p>
1952
1953 <pre>
1954 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1955 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1956 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1957 %
1958 </pre>
1959
1960 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1961
1962 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1963 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1964
1965 <p><blockquote>
1966 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1967 </blockquote></p>
1968
1969 <p>This represent these values:</p>
1970
1971 <pre>
1972  v   00008086  (vendor)
1973  d   00002770  (device)
1974  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
1975  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
1976  bc  06        (bus class)
1977  sc  00        (bus subclass)
1978  i   00        (interface)
1979 </pre>
1980
1981 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1982 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1983 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
1984 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
1985
1986 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1987 means.</p>
1988
1989 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
1990
1991 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
1992 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
1993
1994 <p><blockquote>
1995 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1996 </blockquote></p>
1997
1998 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
1999
2000 <pre>
2001  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
2002  p    0001  (device product)
2003  d    0206  (bcddevice)
2004  dc     09  (device class)
2005  dsc    00  (device subclass)
2006  dp     00  (device protocol)
2007  ic     09  (interface class)
2008  isc    00  (interface subclass)
2009  ip     00  (interface protocol)
2010 </pre>
2011
2012 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
2013 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
2014 these alias entries show up:</p>
2015
2016 <p><blockquote>
2017 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
2018 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
2019 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
2020 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
2021 </blockquote></p>
2022
2023 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
2024 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
2025 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
2026
2027 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
2028
2029 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
2030 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
2031
2032 <p><blockquote>
2033 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2034 </blockquote></p>
2035
2036 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
2037
2038 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
2039
2040 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
2041 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
2042 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
2043
2044 <p><blockquote>
2045 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
2046 </blockquote></p>
2047
2048 <p>The values present are</p>
2049
2050 <pre>
2051  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
2052  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
2053  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
2054  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
2055  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
2056  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
2057  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
2058  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
2059  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
2060  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
2061  ct   10             (chassis type)
2062  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
2063 </pre>
2064
2065 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
2066 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
2067
2068 <pre>
2069   3 Desktop
2070   4 Low Profile Desktop
2071   5 Pizza Box
2072   6 Mini Tower
2073   7 Tower
2074   8 Portable
2075   9 Laptop
2076  10 Notebook
2077  11 Hand Held
2078  12 Docking Station
2079  13 All In One
2080  14 Sub Notebook
2081  15 Space-saving
2082  16 Lunch Box
2083  17 Main Server Chassis
2084  18 Expansion Chassis
2085  19 Sub Chassis
2086  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
2087  21 Peripheral Chassis
2088  22 RAID Chassis
2089  23 Rack Mount Chassis
2090  24 Sealed-case PC
2091  25 Multi-system
2092  26 CompactPCI
2093  27 AdvancedTCA
2094  28 Blade
2095  29 Blade Enclosing
2096 </pre>
2097
2098 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
2099 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
2100 claim it is a desktop.</p>
2101
2102 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
2103
2104 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
2105 test machine:</p>
2106
2107 <p><blockquote>
2108 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
2109 </blockquote></p>
2110
2111 <p>The values present are</p>
2112
2113 <pre>
2114   ty  01  (type)
2115   pr  00  (prototype)
2116   id  00  (id)
2117   ex  00  (extra)
2118 </pre>
2119
2120 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
2121 the valid values are.</p>
2122
2123 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
2124
2125 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
2126 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2127 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2128 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2129 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2130 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2131 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2132
2133 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2134
2135 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2136 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2137
2138 <pre>
2139   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2140     echo "$id" ; \
2141     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2142   done
2143 </pre>
2144
2145 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2146 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2147
2148 <pre>
2149   acpi:ACPI0003:
2150     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2151   acpi:device:
2152   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2153   acpi:IBM0068:
2154     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2155     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2156     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2157     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2158   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2159     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2160     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2161     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2162   [...]
2163 </pre>
2164
2165 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2166 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2167 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2168 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2169
2170 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2171 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2172 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2173
2174       </div>
2175       <div class="tags">
2176
2177
2178         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>.
2179
2180
2181       </div>
2182     </div>
2183     <div class="padding"></div>
2184
2185     <div class="entry">
2186       <div class="title">
2187         <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>
2188       </div>
2189       <div class="date">
2190         10th January 2013
2191       </div>
2192       <div class="body">
2193         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2194 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2195 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2196 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2197 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2198 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2199 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2200 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2201 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2202 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2203 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2204 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2205 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2206 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2207 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2208 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2209 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2210 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2211
2212       </div>
2213       <div class="tags">
2214
2215
2216         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>.
2217
2218
2219       </div>
2220     </div>
2221     <div class="padding"></div>
2222
2223     <div class="entry">
2224       <div class="title">
2225         <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>
2226       </div>
2227       <div class="date">
2228          9th January 2013
2229       </div>
2230       <div class="body">
2231         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2232 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2233 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2234 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2235 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2236 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2237 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2238 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2239 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2240 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2241 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2242
2243 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2244 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2245 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2246 simple:
2247
2248 <ul>
2249
2250 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2251   starting when a user log in.</li>
2252
2253 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2254   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2255
2256 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2257   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2258   packages.</li>
2259
2260 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2261   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2262
2263 </ul>
2264
2265 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2266 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2267 discover database to find packages and
2268 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2269 packages.</p>
2270
2271 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2272 draft package is now checked into
2273 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2274 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2275 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2276 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2277 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2278 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2279 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2280 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2281 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2282 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2283 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2284 because of the freeze).</p>
2285
2286 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2287 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2288 inserted):</p>
2289
2290 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2291
2292 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2293 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2294 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2295
2296 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2297 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2298 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2299 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2300 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2301 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2302 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2303
2304 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2305 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2306 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2307 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2308 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2309 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2310 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2311 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2312 not be installed?</p>
2313
2314 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2315 please send me an email. :)</p>
2316
2317       </div>
2318       <div class="tags">
2319
2320
2321         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>.
2322
2323
2324       </div>
2325     </div>
2326     <div class="padding"></div>
2327
2328     <div class="entry">
2329       <div class="title">
2330         <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>
2331       </div>
2332       <div class="date">
2333          2nd January 2013
2334       </div>
2335       <div class="body">
2336         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2337 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2338 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2339 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2340 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2341 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2342 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2343 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2344 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2345 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2346
2347 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2348 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2349 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2350
2351       </div>
2352       <div class="tags">
2353
2354
2355         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>.
2356
2357
2358       </div>
2359     </div>
2360     <div class="padding"></div>
2361
2362     <div class="entry">
2363       <div class="title">
2364         <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>
2365       </div>
2366       <div class="date">
2367         25th December 2012
2368       </div>
2369       <div class="body">
2370         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2371 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2372
2373 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2374 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2375 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2376 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2377 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2378 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2379 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2380 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2381 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2382 name.</p>
2383
2384 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2385 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2386 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2387
2388 <blockquote><pre>
2389 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2390 cd bitcoin
2391 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
2392 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
2393 </pre></blockquote>
2394
2395 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
2396 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
2397 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
2398 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
2399 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
2400 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
2401 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
2402 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
2403 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
2404
2405 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2406 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2407 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2408
2409       </div>
2410       <div class="tags">
2411
2412
2413         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>.
2414
2415
2416       </div>
2417     </div>
2418     <div class="padding"></div>
2419
2420     <div class="entry">
2421       <div class="title">
2422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
2423       </div>
2424       <div class="date">
2425         21st December 2012
2426       </div>
2427       <div class="body">
2428         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
2429 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
2430 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
2431 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
2432 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
2433 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
2434 is now maintained by a
2435 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
2436 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
2437 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
2438 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
2439 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
2440 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
2441 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
2442 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
2443 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
2444 Corallo in a
2445 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
2446 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
2447 Debian package.</p>
2448
2449 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
2450 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
2451 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
2452 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
2453 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
2454 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
2455 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
2456 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
2457 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
2458 new version to unstable.
2459
2460 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
2461 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
2462 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
2463 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
2464 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
2465 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
2466 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
2467 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
2468 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
2469 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
2470 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
2471 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
2472 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
2473 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
2474 have not tested them.</p>
2475
2476 <p>My
2477 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
2478 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
2479 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
2480 years ago, as can be
2481 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
2482 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
2483 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
2484 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
2485 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
2486 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
2487 the same address as last time,
2488 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2489
2490       </div>
2491       <div class="tags">
2492
2493
2494         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>.
2495
2496
2497       </div>
2498     </div>
2499     <div class="padding"></div>
2500
2501     <div class="entry">
2502       <div class="title">
2503         <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>
2504       </div>
2505       <div class="date">
2506          7th September 2012
2507       </div>
2508       <div class="body">
2509         <p>As I
2510 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2511 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2512 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2513 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2514 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2515
2516 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2517 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2518 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2519 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2520
2521 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2522 PostScript formats at
2523 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2524 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2525
2526       </div>
2527       <div class="tags">
2528
2529
2530         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>.
2531
2532
2533       </div>
2534     </div>
2535     <div class="padding"></div>
2536
2537     <div class="entry">
2538       <div class="title">
2539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
2540       </div>
2541       <div class="date">
2542         16th August 2012
2543       </div>
2544       <div class="body">
2545         <p>I dag fyller
2546 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
2547 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
2548 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
2549
2550       </div>
2551       <div class="tags">
2552
2553
2554         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>.
2555
2556
2557       </div>
2558     </div>
2559     <div class="padding"></div>
2560
2561     <div class="entry">
2562       <div class="title">
2563         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2564       </div>
2565       <div class="date">
2566         24th June 2012
2567       </div>
2568       <div class="body">
2569         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2570 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2571 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
2572 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2573 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2574 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
2575 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2576 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2577 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
2578 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
2579 missing in my book.</p>
2580
2581 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2582 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2583 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2584 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
2585 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
2586 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
2587 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2588
2589       </div>
2590       <div class="tags">
2591
2592
2593         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>.
2594
2595
2596       </div>
2597     </div>
2598     <div class="padding"></div>
2599
2600     <div class="entry">
2601       <div class="title">
2602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
2603       </div>
2604       <div class="date">
2605         21st November 2011
2606       </div>
2607       <div class="body">
2608         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
2609 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
2610 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
2611 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
2612 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
2613 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
2614 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
2615 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
2616 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
2617 the tools to do so.</p>
2618
2619 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
2620 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
2621 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
2622 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
2623
2624 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
2625 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
2626 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
2627 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
2628 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
2629 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
2630 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
2631 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
2632
2633 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
2634 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
2635 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
2636
2637 <p><pre>
2638 #!/usr/bin/perl
2639 use strict;
2640 use warnings;
2641 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
2642 BEGIN {
2643     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
2644     my %rhelmodules = (
2645         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
2646         );
2647     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
2648         eval "use $module;";
2649         if ($@) {
2650             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
2651             system("yum install -y $pkg");
2652             eval "use $module;";
2653         }
2654     }
2655 }
2656 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
2657
2658 upgrade_dell();
2659
2660 exit 0;
2661
2662 sub run_firmware_script {
2663     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
2664     unless ($script) {
2665         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
2666         exit 1
2667     }
2668     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
2669
2670     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
2671         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
2672     } else {
2673         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
2674     }
2675 }
2676
2677 sub run_firmware_scripts {
2678     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
2679     # Run firmware packages
2680     for my $dir (@dirs) {
2681         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
2682         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
2683         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
2684             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
2685             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
2686         }
2687         closedir $dh;
2688     }
2689 }
2690
2691 sub download {
2692     my $url = shift;
2693     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
2694     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
2695 }
2696
2697 sub upgrade_dell {
2698     my @dirs;
2699     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2700     chomp $product;
2701
2702     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
2703
2704         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
2705         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
2706
2707         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
2708             CLEANUP => 1
2709             );
2710         chdir($tmpdir);
2711         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
2712         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
2713         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
2714         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
2715         my $fwopts = "-q";
2716         if (@paths) {
2717             for my $url (@paths) {
2718                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
2719             }
2720             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
2721         } else {
2722             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2723             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2724         }
2725         chdir('/');
2726     } else {
2727         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2728         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2729     }
2730 }
2731
2732 sub fetch_dell_fw {
2733     my $path = shift;
2734     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
2735     download($url);
2736 }
2737
2738 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
2739 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
2740 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
2741 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
2742     my $filename = shift;
2743
2744     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2745     chomp $product;
2746     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
2747
2748     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
2749
2750     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
2751     my @paths;
2752     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
2753         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
2754         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
2755         my $oscode;
2756         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
2757             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
2758         } else {
2759             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
2760         }
2761         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
2762         {
2763             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
2764         }
2765     }
2766     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
2767         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
2768
2769         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
2770         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
2771
2772         my $cpath = $component->{path};
2773         for my $path (@paths) {
2774             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
2775                 push(@paths, $cpath);
2776             }
2777         }
2778     }
2779     return @paths;
2780 }
2781 </pre>
2782
2783 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
2784 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
2785 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
2786 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
2787 outdated.</p>
2788
2789       </div>
2790       <div class="tags">
2791
2792
2793         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>.
2794
2795
2796       </div>
2797     </div>
2798     <div class="padding"></div>
2799
2800     <div class="entry">
2801       <div class="title">
2802         <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>
2803       </div>
2804       <div class="date">
2805          4th August 2011
2806       </div>
2807       <div class="body">
2808         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
2809 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
2810 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
2811 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
2812 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
2813 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
2814 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
2815 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
2816 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
2817
2818 <p><blockquote>
2819 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2820 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
2821 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2822 </blockquote></p>
2823
2824 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2825 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
2826 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2827 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2828 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
2829 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2830 hard to explain.</p>
2831
2832 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2833 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
2834 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
2835 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2836 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2837 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2838 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2839 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2840 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2841 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
2842 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2843 mode).</p>
2844
2845 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
2846 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2847 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
2848 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
2849 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
2850 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
2851 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2852 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2853 after visiting single user mode.</p>
2854
2855 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2856 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
2857 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2858 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2859 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2860 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2861 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
2862 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
2863
2864 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2865 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
2866 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
2867
2868       </div>
2869       <div class="tags">
2870
2871
2872         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>.
2873
2874
2875       </div>
2876     </div>
2877     <div class="padding"></div>
2878
2879     <div class="entry">
2880       <div class="title">
2881         <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>
2882       </div>
2883       <div class="date">
2884         30th July 2011
2885       </div>
2886       <div class="body">
2887         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2888 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
2889 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
2890 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
2891 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2892 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2893 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2894 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2895 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2896 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
2897 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2898 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2899 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
2900
2901 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
2902 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2903 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
2904 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
2905 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2906 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2907 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2908 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
2909 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
2910
2911 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2912 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2913 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2914 is presented.</p>
2915
2916 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
2917 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2918 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2919 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2920 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2921 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2922 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2923 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
2924 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2925 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2926 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2927 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
2928 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2929 find time to push this forward.</p>
2930
2931       </div>
2932       <div class="tags">
2933
2934
2935         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>.
2936
2937
2938       </div>
2939     </div>
2940     <div class="padding"></div>
2941
2942     <div class="entry">
2943       <div class="title">
2944         <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>
2945       </div>
2946       <div class="date">
2947         29th July 2011
2948       </div>
2949       <div class="body">
2950         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2951 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2952 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
2953 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2954 issues.</p>
2955
2956 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2957 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2958 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
2959
2960 <ol>
2961
2962 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
2963 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2964 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
2965 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
2966 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
2967 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
2968 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
2969 Debian.</li>
2970
2971 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
2972 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
2973 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
2974 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
2975 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
2976 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
2977 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
2978 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
2979 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
2980 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
2981 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
2982 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
2983 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
2984
2985 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
2986 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
2987 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
2988 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
2989 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
2990 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
2991 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
2992 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
2993 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
2994 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
2995
2996 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
2997 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
2998 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
2999 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
3000 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
3001 latter behaviour.</li>
3002
3003 </ol>
3004
3005 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3006 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3007 it do not matter much.</p>
3008
3009 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3010 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
3011 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
3012
3013       </div>
3014       <div class="tags">
3015
3016
3017         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3018
3019
3020       </div>
3021     </div>
3022     <div class="padding"></div>
3023
3024     <div class="entry">
3025       <div class="title">
3026         <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>
3027       </div>
3028       <div class="date">
3029         26th July 2011
3030       </div>
3031       <div class="body">
3032         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
3033 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3034 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
3035 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3036 security support for a few years.</p>
3037
3038 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3039 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
3040 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3041 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
3042 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
3043 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
3044 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3045 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3046 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3047 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3048 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3049 easier in the future.</p>
3050
3051 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3052 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
3053 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
3054 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3055 do not have time for.</p>
3056
3057       </div>
3058       <div class="tags">
3059
3060
3061         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>.
3062
3063
3064       </div>
3065     </div>
3066     <div class="padding"></div>
3067
3068     <div class="entry">
3069       <div class="title">
3070         <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>
3071       </div>
3072       <div class="date">
3073          3rd April 2011
3074       </div>
3075       <div class="body">
3076         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
3077 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
3078 update in English.</p>
3079
3080 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
3081 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
3082 of the British service
3083 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
3084 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
3085 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
3086 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
3087 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
3088 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
3089 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
3090 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
3091 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
3092 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
3093 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
3094 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
3095 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
3096
3097 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
3098 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
3099 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
3100 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
3101 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
3102 public infrastructure.</p>
3103
3104 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
3105 such service?</p>
3106
3107       </div>
3108       <div class="tags">
3109
3110
3111         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>.
3112
3113
3114       </div>
3115     </div>
3116     <div class="padding"></div>
3117
3118     <div class="entry">
3119       <div class="title">
3120         <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>
3121       </div>
3122       <div class="date">
3123         28th January 2011
3124       </div>
3125       <div class="body">
3126         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
3127 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
3128 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
3129 available on the Internet, and check our locally
3130 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
3131 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
3132 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
3133 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
3134 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
3135 out which security holes were present in our free software
3136 collection.</p>
3137
3138 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
3139 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
3140 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
3141 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
3142 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
3143 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
3144 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
3145 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
3146 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
3147 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
3148 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
3149 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
3150 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
3151 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
3152 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
3153 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
3154
3155 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
3156 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
3157 check out, one could look up
3158 <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
3159 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
3160 The most recent one is
3161 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
3162 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
3163 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
3164
3165 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
3166 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
3167 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
3168 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
3169 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
3170 security issues out.</p>
3171
3172 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3173 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3174 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3175 RHEL is providing
3176 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3177 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3178 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3179
3180 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3181 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3182 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3183 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3184 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3185 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3186 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3187 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3188 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3189 established soon.</p>
3190
3191 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3192 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3193 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3194 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3195 for their packages.</p>
3196
3197       </div>
3198       <div class="tags">
3199
3200
3201         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>.
3202
3203
3204       </div>
3205     </div>
3206     <div class="padding"></div>
3207
3208     <div class="entry">
3209       <div class="title">
3210         <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>
3211       </div>
3212       <div class="date">
3213         23rd January 2011
3214       </div>
3215       <div class="body">
3216         <p>In the
3217 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3218 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3219 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3220 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3221 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3222 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3223 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3224 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3225 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3226 one of my machines like this:</p>
3227
3228 <pre>
3229 loaded modules:
3230 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3231 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3232 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3233 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3234 10de:03ec pata_amd
3235 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3236 1022:1103 k8temp
3237 109e:036e bttv
3238 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3239 11ab:4364 sky2
3240 </pre>
3241
3242 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3243 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3244
3245 <pre>
3246 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3247     echo loaded pci modules:
3248     (
3249         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3250         for address in * ; do
3251             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3252                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3253                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3254                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3255                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3256                     echo "$id $module"
3257                 fi
3258             fi
3259         done
3260     )
3261     echo
3262 fi
3263 </pre>
3264
3265 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3266 mappings:</p>
3267
3268 <pre>
3269 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3270     echo loaded usb modules:
3271     (
3272         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3273         for address in * ; do
3274             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3275                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3276                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3277                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3278                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3279                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3280                         echo "$id $module"
3281                     fi
3282                 fi
3283             fi
3284         done
3285     )
3286     echo
3287 fi
3288 </pre>
3289
3290 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3291 well.</p>
3292
3293       </div>
3294       <div class="tags">
3295
3296
3297         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>.
3298
3299
3300       </div>
3301     </div>
3302     <div class="padding"></div>
3303
3304     <div class="entry">
3305       <div class="title">
3306         <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>
3307       </div>
3308       <div class="date">
3309         22nd December 2010
3310       </div>
3311       <div class="body">
3312         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3313 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3314 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3315 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3316 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3317 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3318 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3319 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3320 university.</p>
3321
3322 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3323 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3324 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3325 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3326 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3327 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3328 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3329 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3330
3331 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3332 I perform on a new model.</p>
3333
3334 <ul>
3335
3336 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3337 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3338 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3339
3340 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3341 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3342
3343 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3344 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3345 reported by the program.</li>
3346
3347 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3348 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3349 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3350 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3351 normally test this by playing
3352 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3353 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3354
3355 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3356 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3357
3358 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3359 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3360
3361 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3362 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3363
3364 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3365 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3366 few.</li>
3367
3368 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3369 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3370 notice this.</li>
3371
3372 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3373 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3374 resume.</li>
3375
3376 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3377 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3378 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3379 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3380 not.</li>
3381
3382 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3383 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3384 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3385 existence.</li>
3386
3387 </ul>
3388
3389 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
3390 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
3391 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
3392 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
3393 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
3394 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
3395 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
3396 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
3397
3398       </div>
3399       <div class="tags">
3400
3401
3402         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>.
3403
3404
3405       </div>
3406     </div>
3407     <div class="padding"></div>
3408
3409     <div class="entry">
3410       <div class="title">
3411         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
3412       </div>
3413       <div class="date">
3414         11th December 2010
3415       </div>
3416       <div class="body">
3417         <p>As I continue to explore
3418 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
3419 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
3420 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
3421
3422 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
3423 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
3424 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
3425 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
3426 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
3427 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
3428 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
3429 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
3430 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
3431 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
3432 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
3433 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
3434 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
3435 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
3436 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
3437 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
3438 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
3439 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
3440 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
3441 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
3442
3443 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
3444 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
3445 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
3446 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
3447 If the Skolelinux foundation
3448 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
3449 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
3450 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
3451 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
3452 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
3453 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
3454 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
3455 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
3456
3457 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
3458 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
3459 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
3460 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
3461 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
3462 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
3463 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
3464 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
3465 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
3466 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
3467 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
3468 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
3469 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
3470 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
3471 currencies.</p>
3472
3473 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
3474 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
3475 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
3476 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
3477 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
3478 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
3479 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
3480 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
3481 BitCoins.  Check out
3482 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
3483 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
3484 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
3485 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
3486 yet.</p>
3487
3488 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
3489 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
3490 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
3491 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
3492 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
3493
3494       </div>
3495       <div class="tags">
3496
3497
3498         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>.
3499
3500
3501       </div>
3502     </div>
3503     <div class="padding"></div>
3504
3505     <div class="entry">
3506       <div class="title">
3507         <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>
3508       </div>
3509       <div class="date">
3510         10th December 2010
3511       </div>
3512       <div class="body">
3513         <p>With this weeks lawless
3514 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
3515 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
3516 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
3517 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
3518 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
3519 A blog post from
3520 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
3521 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
3522 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
3523 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
3524 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
3525 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
3526 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
3527
3528 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
3529 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
3530 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
3531 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
3532 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
3533 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
3534 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
3535 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
3536 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
3537 Debian</a> soon.</p>
3538
3539 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
3540 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
3541 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
3542 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
3543 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
3544 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
3545 you can even get
3546 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
3547 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
3548 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
3549 on the current exchange rates.</p>
3550
3551 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
3552 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
3553 donations to the address
3554 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
3555
3556       </div>
3557       <div class="tags">
3558
3559
3560         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>.
3561
3562
3563       </div>
3564     </div>
3565     <div class="padding"></div>
3566
3567     <div class="entry">
3568       <div class="title">
3569         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
3570       </div>
3571       <div class="date">
3572         27th November 2010
3573       </div>
3574       <div class="body">
3575         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
3576 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
3577 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
3578 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
3579 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
3580 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
3581 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
3582 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
3583
3584 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
3585 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3586 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
3587 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
3588 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
3589 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
3590 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
3591 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
3592 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
3593 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
3594 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
3595
3596 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
3597 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
3598 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
3599 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
3600 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
3601 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
3602 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
3603 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
3604 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
3605 what is going on.</p>
3606
3607       </div>
3608       <div class="tags">
3609
3610
3611         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>.
3612
3613
3614       </div>
3615     </div>
3616     <div class="padding"></div>
3617
3618     <div class="entry">
3619       <div class="title">
3620         <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>
3621       </div>
3622       <div class="date">
3623         22nd November 2010
3624       </div>
3625       <div class="body">
3626         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
3627 upgrade testing of the
3628 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
3629 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
3630 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
3631 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
3632
3633 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
3634
3635 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3636
3637 <blockquote><p>
3638   apache2.2-bin
3639   aptdaemon
3640   baobab
3641   binfmt-support
3642   browser-plugin-gnash
3643   cheese-common
3644   cli-common
3645   cups-pk-helper
3646   dmz-cursor-theme
3647   empathy
3648   empathy-common
3649   freedesktop-sound-theme
3650   freeglut3
3651   gconf-defaults-service
3652   gdm-themes
3653   gedit-plugins
3654   geoclue
3655   geoclue-hostip
3656   geoclue-localnet
3657   geoclue-manual
3658   geoclue-yahoo
3659   gnash
3660   gnash-common
3661   gnome
3662   gnome-backgrounds
3663   gnome-cards-data
3664   gnome-codec-install
3665   gnome-core
3666   gnome-desktop-environment
3667   gnome-disk-utility
3668   gnome-screenshot
3669   gnome-search-tool
3670   gnome-session-canberra
3671   gnome-system-log
3672   gnome-themes-extras
3673   gnome-themes-more
3674   gnome-user-share
3675   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3676   gstreamer0.10-tools
3677   gtk2-engines
3678   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3679   gtk2-engines-smooth
3680   hamster-applet
3681   libapache2-mod-dnssd
3682   libapr1
3683   libaprutil1
3684   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
3685   libaprutil1-ldap
3686   libart2.0-cil
3687   libboost-date-time1.42.0
3688   libboost-python1.42.0
3689   libboost-thread1.42.0
3690   libchamplain-0.4-0
3691   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
3692   libcheese-gtk18
3693   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3694   libcryptui0
3695   libdiscid0
3696   libelf1
3697   libepc-1.0-2
3698   libepc-common
3699   libepc-ui-1.0-2
3700   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3701   libfreerdp0
3702   libgconf2.0-cil
3703   libgdata-common
3704   libgdata7
3705   libgdu-gtk0
3706   libgee2
3707   libgeoclue0
3708   libgexiv2-0
3709   libgif4
3710   libglade2.0-cil
3711   libglib2.0-cil
3712   libgmime2.4-cil
3713   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3714   libgnome2.24-cil
3715   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
3716   libgpod-common
3717   libgpod4
3718   libgtk2.0-cil
3719   libgtkglext1
3720   libgtksourceview2.0-common
3721   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3722   libmono-addins0.2-cil
3723   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
3724   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3725   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
3726   libmono-posix2.0-cil
3727   libmono-security2.0-cil
3728   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3729   libmono-system2.0-cil
3730   libmtp8
3731   libmusicbrainz3-6
3732   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
3733   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
3734   libopal3.6.8
3735   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
3736   libpt2.6.7
3737   libpython2.6
3738   librpm1
3739   librpmio1
3740   libsdl1.2debian
3741   libsrtp0
3742   libssh-4
3743   libtelepathy-farsight0
3744   libtelepathy-glib0
3745   libtidy-0.99-0
3746   media-player-info
3747   mesa-utils
3748   mono-2.0-gac
3749   mono-gac
3750   mono-runtime
3751   nautilus-sendto
3752   nautilus-sendto-empathy
3753   p7zip-full
3754   pkg-config
3755   python-aptdaemon
3756   python-aptdaemon-gtk
3757   python-axiom
3758   python-beautifulsoup
3759   python-bugbuddy
3760   python-clientform
3761   python-coherence
3762   python-configobj
3763   python-crypto
3764   python-cupshelpers
3765   python-elementtree
3766   python-epsilon
3767   python-evolution
3768   python-feedparser
3769   python-gdata
3770   python-gdbm
3771   python-gst0.10
3772   python-gtkglext1
3773   python-gtksourceview2
3774   python-httplib2
3775   python-louie
3776   python-mako
3777   python-markupsafe
3778   python-mechanize
3779   python-nevow
3780   python-notify
3781   python-opengl
3782   python-openssl
3783   python-pam
3784   python-pkg-resources
3785   python-pyasn1
3786   python-pysqlite2
3787   python-rdflib
3788   python-serial
3789   python-tagpy
3790   python-twisted-bin
3791   python-twisted-conch
3792   python-twisted-core
3793   python-twisted-web
3794   python-utidylib
3795   python-webkit
3796   python-xdg
3797   python-zope.interface
3798   remmina
3799   remmina-plugin-data
3800   remmina-plugin-rdp
3801   remmina-plugin-vnc
3802   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3803   rhythmbox-plugins
3804   rpm-common
3805   rpm2cpio
3806   seahorse-plugins
3807   shotwell
3808   software-center
3809   system-config-printer-udev
3810   telepathy-gabble
3811   telepathy-mission-control-5
3812   telepathy-salut
3813   tomboy
3814   totem
3815   totem-coherence
3816   totem-mozilla
3817   totem-plugins
3818   transmission-common
3819   xdg-user-dirs
3820   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
3821   xserver-xephyr
3822 </p></blockquote>
3823
3824 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3825
3826 <blockquote><p>
3827   cheese
3828   ekiga
3829   eog
3830   epiphany-extensions
3831   evolution-exchange
3832   fast-user-switch-applet
3833   file-roller
3834   gcalctool
3835   gconf-editor
3836   gdm
3837   gedit
3838   gedit-common
3839   gnome-games
3840   gnome-games-data
3841   gnome-nettool
3842   gnome-system-tools
3843   gnome-themes
3844   gnuchess
3845   gucharmap
3846   guile-1.8-libs
3847   libavahi-ui0
3848   libdmx1
3849   libgalago3
3850   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3851   libgtksourceview2.0-0
3852   liblircclient0
3853   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
3854   libspeexdsp1
3855   libsvga1
3856   rhythmbox
3857   seahorse
3858   sound-juicer
3859   system-config-printer
3860   totem-common
3861   transmission-gtk
3862   vinagre
3863   vino
3864 </p></blockquote>
3865
3866 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3867
3868 <blockquote><p>
3869   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3870 </p></blockquote>
3871
3872 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3873
3874 <blockquote><p>
3875 [nothing]
3876 </p></blockquote>
3877
3878 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3879
3880 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3881
3882 <blockquote><p>
3883   ksmserver
3884 </p></blockquote>
3885
3886 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3887
3888 <blockquote><p>
3889   kwin
3890   network-manager-kde
3891 </p></blockquote>
3892
3893 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3894
3895 <blockquote><p>
3896   arts
3897   dolphin
3898   freespacenotifier
3899   google-gadgets-gst
3900   google-gadgets-xul
3901   kappfinder
3902   kcalc
3903   kcharselect
3904   kde-core
3905   kde-plasma-desktop
3906   kde-standard
3907   kde-window-manager
3908   kdeartwork
3909   kdeartwork-emoticons
3910   kdeartwork-style
3911   kdeartwork-theme-icon
3912   kdebase
3913   kdebase-apps
3914   kdebase-workspace
3915   kdebase-workspace-bin
3916   kdebase-workspace-data
3917   kdeeject
3918   kdelibs
3919   kdeplasma-addons
3920   kdeutils
3921   kdewallpapers
3922   kdf
3923   kfloppy
3924   kgpg
3925   khelpcenter4
3926   kinfocenter
3927   konq-plugins-l10n
3928   konqueror-nsplugins
3929   kscreensaver
3930   kscreensaver-xsavers
3931   ktimer
3932   kwrite
3933   libgle3
3934   libkde4-ruby1.8
3935   libkonq5
3936   libkonq5-templates
3937   libnetpbm10
3938   libplasma-ruby
3939   libplasma-ruby1.8
3940   libqt4-ruby1.8
3941   marble-data
3942   marble-plugins
3943   netpbm
3944   nuvola-icon-theme
3945   plasma-dataengines-workspace
3946   plasma-desktop
3947   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
3948   plasma-runners-addons
3949   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3950   plasma-scriptengine-python
3951   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3952   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3953   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3954   plasma-scriptengines
3955   plasma-wallpapers-addons
3956   plasma-widget-folderview
3957   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3958   ruby
3959   sweeper
3960   update-notifier-kde
3961   xscreensaver-data-extra
3962   xscreensaver-gl
3963   xscreensaver-gl-extra
3964   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3965 </p></blockquote>
3966
3967 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3968
3969 <blockquote><p>
3970   ark
3971   google-gadgets-common
3972   google-gadgets-qt
3973   htdig
3974   kate
3975   kdebase-bin
3976   kdebase-data
3977   kdepasswd
3978   kfind
3979   klipper
3980   konq-plugins
3981   konqueror
3982   ksysguard
3983   ksysguardd
3984   libarchive1
3985   libcln6
3986   libeet1
3987   libeina-svn-06
3988   libggadget-1.0-0b
3989   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
3990   libgps19
3991   libkdecorations4
3992   libkephal4
3993   libkonq4
3994   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
3995   libkscreensaver5
3996   libksgrd4
3997   libksignalplotter4
3998   libkunitconversion4
3999   libkwineffects1a
4000   libmarblewidget4
4001   libntrack-qt4-1
4002   libntrack0
4003   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
4004   libplasmaclock4a
4005   libplasmagenericshell4
4006   libprocesscore4a
4007   libprocessui4a
4008   libqalculate5
4009   libqedje0a
4010   libqtruby4shared2
4011   libqzion0a
4012   libruby1.8
4013   libscim8c2a
4014   libsmokekdecore4-3
4015   libsmokekdeui4-3
4016   libsmokekfile3
4017   libsmokekhtml3
4018   libsmokekio3
4019   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
4020   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
4021   libsmokekparts3
4022   libsmokektexteditor3
4023   libsmokekutils3
4024   libsmokenepomuk3
4025   libsmokephonon3
4026   libsmokeplasma3
4027   libsmokeqtcore4-3
4028   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
4029   libsmokeqtgui4-3
4030   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
4031   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
4032   libsmokeqtscript4-3
4033   libsmokeqtsql4-3
4034   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
4035   libsmokeqttest4-3
4036   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
4037   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
4038   libsmokeqtxml4-3
4039   libsmokesolid3
4040   libsmokesoprano3
4041   libtaskmanager4a
4042   libtidy-0.99-0
4043   libweather-ion4a
4044   libxklavier16
4045   libxxf86misc1
4046   okteta
4047   oxygencursors
4048   plasma-dataengines-addons
4049   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
4050   plasma-widget-lancelot
4051   plasma-widgets-addons
4052   plasma-widgets-workspace
4053   polkit-kde-1
4054   ruby1.8
4055   systemsettings
4056   update-notifier-common
4057 </p></blockquote>
4058
4059 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
4060 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
4061 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
4062 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
4063
4064       </div>
4065       <div class="tags">
4066
4067
4068         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>.
4069
4070
4071       </div>
4072     </div>
4073     <div class="padding"></div>
4074
4075     <div class="entry">
4076       <div class="title">
4077         <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>
4078       </div>
4079       <div class="date">
4080         22nd November 2010
4081       </div>
4082       <div class="body">
4083         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
4084 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
4085 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
4086 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
4087 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
4088 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
4089 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
4090 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
4091 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
4092
4093 <p>I found
4094 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
4095 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
4096 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
4097 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
4098 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
4099 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
4100
4101 <pre>
4102 #!/bin/sh
4103
4104 # Based on
4105 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
4106
4107 set -e
4108 set -x
4109
4110 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
4111     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
4112     exit 1
4113 else
4114     host="$1"
4115 fi
4116
4117 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
4118     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
4119     exit 1
4120 fi
4121
4122 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
4123 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4124 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4125 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
4126
4127 img=$host.img
4128 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
4129 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
4130
4131 parted $img mklabel msdos
4132 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
4133 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
4134 parted $img set 1 boot on
4135
4136 modprobe dm-mod
4137 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
4138 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
4139
4140 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
4141 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
4142 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
4143
4144 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
4145 losetup -d /dev/loop0
4146 </pre>
4147
4148 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
4149 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
4150
4151 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
4152 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
4153 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
4154 seem to work just fine.</p>
4155
4156       </div>
4157       <div class="tags">
4158
4159
4160         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>.
4161
4162
4163       </div>
4164     </div>
4165     <div class="padding"></div>
4166
4167     <div class="entry">
4168       <div class="title">
4169         <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>
4170       </div>
4171       <div class="date">
4172         20th November 2010
4173       </div>
4174       <div class="body">
4175         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4176 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4177 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4178 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4179
4180 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4181 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4182 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4183
4184 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4185
4186 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4187
4188 <blockquote><p>
4189   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4190   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4191   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4192   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4193   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4194   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4195   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4196   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4197   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4198   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4199   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4200   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4201   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4202   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4203   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4204   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4205   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4206   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4207   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4208   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4209   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4210   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4211   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4212   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4213   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4214   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4215   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4216   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4217   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4218   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4219   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4220   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4221   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4222   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4223   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4224   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4225   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4226   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4227   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4228   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4229   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4230   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4231   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4232   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4233   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4234   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4235   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4236   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4237   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4238   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4239   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4240   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4241   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4242   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4243   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4244   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4245   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4246   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4247   zip
4248 </p></blockquote>
4249
4250 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4251
4252 <blockquote><p>
4253   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4254   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4255   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4256   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4257   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4258   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4259   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4260   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4261   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4262   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4263   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4264   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4265   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4266   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4267   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4268   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4269   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4270   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4271   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4272   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4273   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4274   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4275   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4276   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4277   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4278   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4279   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4280   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4281   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4282 </p></blockquote>
4283
4284 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4285
4286 <blockquote><p>
4287   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4288 </p></blockquote>
4289
4290 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4291
4292 <blockquote><p>
4293 [nothing]
4294 </p></blockquote>
4295
4296 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4297
4298 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4299
4300 <blockquote><p>
4301   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4302   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4303   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4304   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4305   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4306   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4307   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4308   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4309   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4310   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4311   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4312   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4313   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4314   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4315   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4316   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4317   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4318   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4319   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4320   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4321   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4322   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4323   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4324   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4325   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4326   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4327   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4328   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4329   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4330   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4331 </p></blockquote>
4332
4333 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4334
4335 <blockquote><p>
4336   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4337   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4338   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4339   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4340   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4341   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4342   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4343   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4344   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4345   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4346   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4347   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4348   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4349   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4350   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4351   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4352   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4353   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4354   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4355   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4356   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4357   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4358   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4359   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4360   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4361   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4362   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4363   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4364   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4365   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4366   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4367   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4368   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4369 </p></blockquote>
4370
4371 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4372
4373 <blockquote><p>
4374   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4375   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4376   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4377   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4378   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4379   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4380   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4381 </p></blockquote>
4382
4383 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4384
4385 <blockquote><p>
4386   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4387 </p></blockquote>
4388
4389       </div>
4390       <div class="tags">
4391
4392
4393         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>.
4394
4395
4396       </div>
4397     </div>
4398     <div class="padding"></div>
4399
4400     <div class="entry">
4401       <div class="title">
4402         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
4403       </div>
4404       <div class="date">
4405         20th November 2010
4406       </div>
4407       <div class="body">
4408         <p>Answering
4409 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
4410 call from the Gnash project</a> for
4411 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
4412 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
4413 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
4414 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
4415 releases out more often.</p>
4416
4417 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
4418 I have considered setting up a <a
4419 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
4420 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
4421 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
4422 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
4423 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
4424 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
4425 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
4426 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
4427 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
4428 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
4429 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
4430 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
4431
4432       </div>
4433       <div class="tags">
4434
4435
4436         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>.
4437
4438
4439       </div>
4440     </div>
4441     <div class="padding"></div>
4442
4443     <div class="entry">
4444       <div class="title">
4445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
4446       </div>
4447       <div class="date">
4448          9th November 2010
4449       </div>
4450       <div class="body">
4451         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
4452
4453 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
4454 3D linked in from
4455 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
4456 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
4457
4458       </div>
4459       <div class="tags">
4460
4461
4462         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>.
4463
4464
4465       </div>
4466     </div>
4467     <div class="padding"></div>
4468
4469     <div class="entry">
4470       <div class="title">
4471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
4472       </div>
4473       <div class="date">
4474         24th October 2010
4475       </div>
4476       <div class="body">
4477         <p>Some updates.</p>
4478
4479 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
4480 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
4481 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
4482 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
4483 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
4484 :)</p>
4485
4486 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
4487 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
4488 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
4489 It is called
4490 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
4491 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
4492 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
4493 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
4494 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
4495 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
4496
4497 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
4498 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
4499 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
4500 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
4501 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
4502 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
4503 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
4504 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
4505 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
4506 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
4507
4508       </div>
4509       <div class="tags">
4510
4511
4512         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>.
4513
4514
4515       </div>
4516     </div>
4517     <div class="padding"></div>
4518
4519     <div class="entry">
4520       <div class="title">
4521         <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>
4522       </div>
4523       <div class="date">
4524          4th September 2010
4525       </div>
4526       <div class="body">
4527         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
4528 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
4529 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
4530 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
4531 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
4532 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
4533 installed.</p>
4534
4535 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
4536 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
4537 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
4538 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
4539 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4540 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
4541 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
4542 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
4543 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
4544
4545 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
4546 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
4547 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
4548 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
4549 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
4550 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
4551 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
4552 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
4553 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
4554 pages they want to visit.</p>
4555
4556 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
4557 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
4558 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
4559 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
4560 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
4561 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
4562 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
4563 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
4564 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
4565 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
4566 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
4567
4568       </div>
4569       <div class="tags">
4570
4571
4572         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>.
4573
4574
4575       </div>
4576     </div>
4577     <div class="padding"></div>
4578
4579     <div class="entry">
4580       <div class="title">
4581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
4582       </div>
4583       <div class="date">
4584         27th July 2010
4585       </div>
4586       <div class="body">
4587         <p>I discovered this while doing
4588 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
4589 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
4590 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
4591 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
4592 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
4593
4594 <p>An example is from todays
4595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
4596 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
4597 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
4598 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
4599 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
4600 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
4601 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
4602
4603 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
4604
4605 <blockquote><pre>
4606 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
4607  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
4608   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
4609 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
4610  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
4611 </pre></blockquote>
4612
4613 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
4614 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
4615 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
4616 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
4617 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
4618 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
4619 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
4620 of dependency loops.</p>
4621
4622 <p>Thanks to
4623 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
4624 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
4625 dependencies
4626 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
4627 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
4628
4629 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
4630 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
4631 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
4632 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
4633 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
4634 it.</p>
4635
4636       </div>
4637       <div class="tags">
4638
4639
4640         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>.
4641
4642
4643       </div>
4644     </div>
4645     <div class="padding"></div>
4646
4647     <div class="entry">
4648       <div class="title">
4649         <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>
4650       </div>
4651       <div class="date">
4652         17th July 2010
4653       </div>
4654       <div class="body">
4655         <p>This is a
4656 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
4657 on my
4658 <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
4659 work</a> on
4660 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
4661 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
4662
4663 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
4664 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
4665 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
4666 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
4667
4668 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
4669 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
4670 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
4671
4672 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
4673
4674 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
4675 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
4676 the web.
4677
4678 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
4679 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
4680 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
4681 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
4682 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
4683 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
4684
4685 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
4686 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
4687 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
4688 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
4689 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
4690 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
4691 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
4692 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
4693 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
4694 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
4695 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
4696 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
4697 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
4698 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
4699 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
4700 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
4701
4702 <blockquote><pre>
4703 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4704   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4705   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4706   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4707   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4708   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4709   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4710
4711 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4712   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4713   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
4714   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
4715   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
4716   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
4717 </pre></blockquote>
4718
4719 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
4720 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
4721 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
4722 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4723 also exist.</p>
4724
4725 <blockquote><pre>
4726 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4727 objectclass: top
4728 objectclass: dnsdomain
4729 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4730 dc: tjener
4731 arecord: 10.0.2.2
4732 associateddomain: tjener.intern
4733
4734 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4735 objectclass: top
4736 objectclass: dnsdomain2
4737 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4738 dc: 2
4739 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
4740 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
4741 </pre></blockquote>
4742
4743 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
4744 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
4745 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
4746 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
4747 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
4748 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
4749 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
4750 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
4751 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
4752 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
4753 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
4754 instead.</p>
4755
4756 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
4757 like this:</p>
4758
4759 <blockquote><pre>
4760 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4761   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4762   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4763   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4764   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4765   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4766
4767 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4768   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
4769 </pre></blockquote>
4770
4771 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
4772 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
4773 reverse lookups.</p>
4774
4775 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
4776 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
4777 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
4778 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
4779
4780 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
4781 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
4782 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
4783
4784 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
4785 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
4786 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
4787 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
4788 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
4789
4790 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
4791 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
4792 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
4793 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
4794 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
4795
4796 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
4797 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
4798 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
4799 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
4800 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
4801 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
4802
4803 <blockquote><pre>
4804 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
4805     SUP top
4806     AUXILIARY
4807     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
4808           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
4809           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
4810           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
4811           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
4812     ))
4813 </pre></blockquote>
4814
4815 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
4816 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
4817 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
4818 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
4819 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
4820 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
4821
4822 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
4823
4824 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
4825 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
4826 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
4827 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
4828 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
4829
4830 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
4831 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
4832 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
4833 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
4834
4835 <blockquote><pre>
4836 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
4837 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
4838 </pre></blockquote>
4839
4840 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
4841 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
4842 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
4843 search result is this entry:</p>
4844
4845 <blockquote><pre>
4846 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4847 cn: dhcp
4848 objectClass: top
4849 objectClass: dhcpServer
4850 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4851 </pre></blockquote>
4852
4853 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
4854 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
4855 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
4856 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
4857 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
4858 The search result is this entry:</p>
4859
4860 <blockquote><pre>
4861 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4862 cn: DHCP Config
4863 objectClass: top
4864 objectClass: dhcpService
4865 objectClass: dhcpOptions
4866 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4867 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
4868 dhcpStatements: authoritative
4869 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
4870 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
4871 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
4872 </pre></blockquote>
4873
4874 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
4875 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
4876 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
4877 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
4878 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
4879 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
4880 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
4881 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
4882 related computer objects.</p>
4883
4884 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
4885 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
4886 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
4887 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
4888 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
4889 like:</p>
4890
4891 <blockquote><pre>
4892 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4893 cn: hostname
4894 objectClass: top
4895 objectClass: dhcpHost
4896 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4897 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
4898 </pre></blockquote>
4899
4900 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
4901 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
4902 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
4903 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
4904 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
4905 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
4906 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
4907 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
4908 structural object class.
4909
4910 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4911
4912 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
4913 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
4914 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
4915 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
4916 in the configuration.</p>
4917
4918 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
4919 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
4920 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
4921 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
4922 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
4923 structure.</p>
4924
4925 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
4926 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
4927
4928 <blockquote><pre>
4929 ou=services
4930   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
4931     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
4932     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4933       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4934         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4935     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4936       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4937         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4938     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
4939       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
4940 </pre></blockquote>
4941
4942 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
4943 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
4944 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
4945 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
4946
4947 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
4948 like this:</p>
4949
4950 <blockquote><pre>
4951 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4952 dc: hostname
4953 objectClass: top
4954 objectClass: dhcpHost
4955 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4956 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
4957 associateddomain: hostname.intern
4958 arecord: 10.11.12.13
4959 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4960 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
4961 </pre></blockquote>
4962
4963 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
4964 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
4965 auxiliary object class.</p>
4966
4967       </div>
4968       <div class="tags">
4969
4970
4971         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>.
4972
4973
4974       </div>
4975     </div>
4976     <div class="padding"></div>
4977
4978     <div class="entry">
4979       <div class="title">
4980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
4981       </div>
4982       <div class="date">
4983         14th July 2010
4984       </div>
4985       <div class="body">
4986         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
4987 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
4988 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
4989 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
4990 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
4991
4992 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
4993 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
4994
4995 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
4996 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
4997 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
4998 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
4999 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
5000 to a slave DNS server.</p>
5001
5002 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
5003 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
5004 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
5005 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
5006 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
5007 seem to work.</p>
5008
5009 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
5010 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
5011 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
5012 this:</p>
5013
5014 <blockquote><pre>
5015   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5016   cn: hostname
5017   objectClass: dhcphost
5018   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5019   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
5020   associateddomain: hostname.intern
5021   arecord: 10.11.12.13
5022   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5023   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
5024   ldapconfigsound: Y
5025 </pre></blockquote>
5026
5027 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
5028 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
5029 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
5030 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
5031
5032 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
5033 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
5034 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
5035 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
5036 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
5037 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
5038 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
5039 might be a good place to put it.</p>
5040
5041 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5042 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5043
5044       </div>
5045       <div class="tags">
5046
5047
5048         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>.
5049
5050
5051       </div>
5052     </div>
5053     <div class="padding"></div>
5054
5055     <div class="entry">
5056       <div class="title">
5057         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
5058       </div>
5059       <div class="date">
5060         11th July 2010
5061       </div>
5062       <div class="body">
5063         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
5064 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
5065 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
5066 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
5067
5068 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
5069 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
5070 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
5071 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
5072 LTSP clients.</p>
5073
5074 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
5075 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
5076 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
5077
5078 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
5079 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
5080 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
5081
5082 <blockquote><pre>
5083 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
5084 #
5085 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
5086 #
5087 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
5088 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
5089 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
5090 #
5091 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
5092 # existence of attribute names.
5093 #
5094 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
5095 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
5096 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
5097 #
5098 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
5099 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
5100 #
5101 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
5102 #     SUP top
5103 #     AUXILIARY
5104 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
5105
5106 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
5107 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
5108     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
5109     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
5110         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
5111         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
5112             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
5113             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
5114             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
5115             # bass value on to clients
5116             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
5117         done
5118     done
5119 fi
5120 </pre></blockquote>
5121
5122 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
5123 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
5124 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
5125 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
5126 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
5127
5128 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5129 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5130
5131 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
5132 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
5133 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
5134 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
5135 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
5136 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
5137
5138       </div>
5139       <div class="tags">
5140
5141
5142         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>.
5143
5144
5145       </div>
5146     </div>
5147     <div class="padding"></div>
5148
5149     <div class="entry">
5150       <div class="title">
5151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5152       </div>
5153       <div class="date">
5154          9th July 2010
5155       </div>
5156       <div class="body">
5157         <p>Since
5158 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
5159 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
5160 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
5161 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
5162 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
5163 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
5164 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
5165 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
5166 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
5167 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
5168 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
5169 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
5170 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
5171
5172       </div>
5173       <div class="tags">
5174
5175
5176         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>.
5177
5178
5179       </div>
5180     </div>
5181     <div class="padding"></div>
5182
5183     <div class="entry">
5184       <div class="title">
5185         <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>
5186       </div>
5187       <div class="date">
5188          3rd July 2010
5189       </div>
5190       <div class="body">
5191         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5192 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5193 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5194 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5195 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5196 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5197 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5198 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5199
5200 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5201 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5202 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5203 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5204 publish the difference.</p>
5205
5206 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5207
5208 <blockquote><p>
5209   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5210   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5211   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5212   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5213   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5214   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5215   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5216   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5217 </p></blockquote>
5218
5219 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5220
5221 <blockquote><p>
5222   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5223   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5224   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5225   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5226   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5227   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5228   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5229   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5230   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5231   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5232   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5233   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5234   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5235   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5236   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5237   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5238   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5239   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5240   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5241   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5242 </p></blockquote>
5243
5244 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5245
5246 <blockquote><p>
5247   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5248   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5249   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5250   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5251   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5252   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5253   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5254   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5255   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5256   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5257   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5258   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5259   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5260   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5261   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5262   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5263   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5264   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5265   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5266   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5267   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5268 </p></blockquote>
5269
5270 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5271
5272 <blockquote><p>
5273   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5274   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5275   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5276 </p></blockquote>
5277
5278 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5279 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5280 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5281 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5282 the difference somewhat.
5283
5284       </div>
5285       <div class="tags">
5286
5287
5288         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>.
5289
5290
5291       </div>
5292     </div>
5293     <div class="padding"></div>
5294
5295     <div class="entry">
5296       <div class="title">
5297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5298       </div>
5299       <div class="date">
5300         28th June 2010
5301       </div>
5302       <div class="body">
5303         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5304 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5305 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5306 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5307 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5308 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5309 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5310 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5311 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5312 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5313
5314 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5315 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5316 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5317 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5318 released.</p>
5319
5320 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5321 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5322 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5323 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5324
5325 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5326 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5327
5328 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5329 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5330 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5331 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5332 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5333
5334       </div>
5335       <div class="tags">
5336
5337
5338         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>.
5339
5340
5341       </div>
5342     </div>
5343     <div class="padding"></div>
5344
5345     <div class="entry">
5346       <div class="title">
5347         <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>
5348       </div>
5349       <div class="date">
5350         24th June 2010
5351       </div>
5352       <div class="body">
5353         <p>A while back, I
5354 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5355 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5356 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5357 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5358
5359 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5360 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5361 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5362 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5363
5364 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5365 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5366 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5367 Debian Edu.</p>
5368
5369 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5370 the
5371 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5372 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5373 available today from IETF.</p>
5374
5375 <pre>
5376 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5377 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5378 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5379  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5380         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5381         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5382 -       SUP top
5383 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5384         MUST cn
5385         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5386         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5387 </pre>
5388
5389 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
5390 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
5391 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
5392
5393 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5394 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5395
5396       </div>
5397       <div class="tags">
5398
5399
5400         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>.
5401
5402
5403       </div>
5404     </div>
5405     <div class="padding"></div>
5406
5407     <div class="entry">
5408       <div class="title">
5409         <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>
5410       </div>
5411       <div class="date">
5412         16th June 2010
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="body">
5415         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
5416 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
5417 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
5418 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
5419 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
5420 this:
5421
5422 <blockquote><pre>
5423 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5424 tasksel --new-install
5425 </pre></blockquote>
5426
5427 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
5428 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
5429 any output what so ever.
5430
5431 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
5432 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
5433 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
5434 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
5435 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
5436 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
5437 code like this:
5438
5439 <blockquote><pre>
5440 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5441 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
5442 $cmd
5443 </pre></blockquote>
5444
5445 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
5446 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
5447 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
5448 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
5449 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
5450 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
5451 installation.</p>
5452
5453 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
5454 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
5455 like this.</p>
5456
5457       </div>
5458       <div class="tags">
5459
5460
5461         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>.
5462
5463
5464       </div>
5465     </div>
5466     <div class="padding"></div>
5467
5468     <div class="entry">
5469       <div class="title">
5470         <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>
5471       </div>
5472       <div class="date">
5473         13th June 2010
5474       </div>
5475       <div class="body">
5476         <p>My
5477 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
5478 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
5479 finally made the upgrade logs available from
5480 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
5481 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
5482 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
5483 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
5484
5485 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
5486 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
5487 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
5488 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
5489 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
5490 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
5491 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
5492 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
5493
5494 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
5495 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
5496 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
5497 too surprising.</p>
5498
5499 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
5500 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
5501 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
5502 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
5503 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
5504 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
5505 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
5506 continue.</p>
5507
5508 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
5509 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
5510   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
5511   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
5512   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
5513   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
5514   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
5515   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5516   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5517   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5518   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5519   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5520   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5521   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5522   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5523   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5524   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5525   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5526   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5527   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5528   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5529   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5530   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5531   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5532   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5533   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5534   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5535   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5536   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
5537   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
5538
5539 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
5540
5541 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
5542   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
5543   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
5544   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
5545   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5546   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
5547   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
5548   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
5549   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
5550   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
5551   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5552   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
5553   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5554   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
5555   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
5556   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
5557   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
5558   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
5559   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
5560   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
5561   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
5562   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
5563   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
5564   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
5565   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5566   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
5567   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
5568   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
5569   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
5570   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5571   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5572   zip</p>
5573
5574 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
5575
5576 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
5577   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
5578   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
5579   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
5580   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
5581   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
5582   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5583   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5584   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5585   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5586   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5587   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5588   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5589   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5590   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5591   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5592   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5593   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5594   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5595   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5596   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5597   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5598   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5599   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5600   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5601   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5602   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5603   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
5604
5605 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
5606 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
5607   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5608   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
5609   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
5610   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5611   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
5612   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
5613   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5614   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
5615   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
5616   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
5617   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
5618   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
5619   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
5620   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
5621   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
5622   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5623   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5624   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5625   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
5626   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5627   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
5628   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
5629   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5630   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5631   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
5632   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
5633   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
5634   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
5635   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
5636   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
5637   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
5638   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
5639   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
5640   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5641   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5642   xulrunner-1.9</p>
5643
5644
5645       </div>
5646       <div class="tags">
5647
5648
5649         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>.
5650
5651
5652       </div>
5653     </div>
5654     <div class="padding"></div>
5655
5656     <div class="entry">
5657       <div class="title">
5658         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
5659       </div>
5660       <div class="date">
5661         11th June 2010
5662       </div>
5663       <div class="body">
5664         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
5665 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
5666 have been discovered and reported in the process
5667 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
5668 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
5669 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
5670 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
5671 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
5672
5673 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
5674 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
5675 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
5676 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
5677 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
5678 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
5679
5680 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
5681 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
5682 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5683 is created.  The bug report
5684 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
5685 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
5686 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
5687 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
5688 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
5689 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
5690 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
5691 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
5692 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
5693 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
5694 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
5695 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
5696 Debian Squeeze.</p>
5697
5698 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
5699 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
5700 trick:</p>
5701
5702 <blockquote><pre>
5703 #!/bin/sh
5704 set -ex
5705
5706 if [ "$1" ] ; then
5707     desktop=$1
5708 else
5709     desktop=gnome
5710 fi
5711
5712 from=lenny
5713 to=squeeze
5714
5715 exec &lt; /dev/null
5716 unset LANG
5717 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
5718 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
5719 fuser -mv .
5720 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
5721 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5722 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
5723 #!/bin/sh
5724 exit 101
5725 EOF
5726 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
5727 exit_cleanup() {
5728     umount $tmpdir/proc
5729 }
5730 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
5731 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
5732 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
5733
5734 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
5735
5736 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
5737 # to return the correct answers.
5738 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
5739     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
5740
5741 # Include the desktop and laptop task
5742 for test in desktop laptop ; do
5743     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
5744 #!/bin/sh
5745 exit 2
5746 EOF
5747     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
5748 done
5749
5750 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5751 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
5752 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
5753 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
5754
5755 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
5756 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5757 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5758 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
5759 fuser -mv
5760 </pre></blockquote>
5761
5762 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
5763 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
5764 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
5765 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
5766 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
5767 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
5768
5769 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
5770 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
5771 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
5772 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
5773 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
5774 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
5775 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
5776
5777 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
5778 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
5779 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
5780 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
5781 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
5782 packages.</p>
5783
5784       </div>
5785       <div class="tags">
5786
5787
5788         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>.
5789
5790
5791       </div>
5792     </div>
5793     <div class="padding"></div>
5794
5795     <div class="entry">
5796       <div class="title">
5797         <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>
5798       </div>
5799       <div class="date">
5800          6th June 2010
5801       </div>
5802       <div class="body">
5803         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
5804 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
5805 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
5806 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
5807 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
5808 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
5809 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
5810
5811 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
5812 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
5813 COLUMNS):</p>
5814
5815 <blockquote><pre>
5816 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
5817 previous=N
5818 PREVLEVEL=
5819 RUNLEVEL=
5820 runlevel=S
5821 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
5822 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
5823 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
5824 </pre></blockquote>
5825
5826 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
5827 script.</p>
5828
5829 <blockquote><pre>
5830 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
5831 previous=N
5832 PREVLEVEL=N
5833 RUNLEVEL=S
5834 runlevel=S
5835 </pre></blockquote>
5836
5837 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
5838 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
5839 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
5840
5841 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
5842 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
5843 choice.</p>
5844
5845       </div>
5846       <div class="tags">
5847
5848
5849         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>.
5850
5851
5852       </div>
5853     </div>
5854     <div class="padding"></div>
5855
5856     <div class="entry">
5857       <div class="title">
5858         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
5859       </div>
5860       <div class="date">
5861          6th June 2010
5862       </div>
5863       <div class="body">
5864         <p>Via the
5865 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
5866 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
5867 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
5868 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
5869 following the standards wars of today.</p>
5870
5871       </div>
5872       <div class="tags">
5873
5874
5875         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>.
5876
5877
5878       </div>
5879     </div>
5880     <div class="padding"></div>
5881
5882     <div class="entry">
5883       <div class="title">
5884         <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>
5885       </div>
5886       <div class="date">
5887          3rd June 2010
5888       </div>
5889       <div class="body">
5890         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
5891 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
5892 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
5893 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
5894 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
5895
5896 <blockquote><pre>
5897 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
5898   vendor                    count
5899   Dell Computer Corporation     1
5900     PowerEdge 1750              1
5901   IBM                           1
5902     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
5903   Intel                         2
5904   [no-dmi-info]                 3
5905 maintainer:~#
5906 </pre></blockquote>
5907
5908 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
5909 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
5910 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
5911 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
5912 option to list the individual machines.</p>
5913
5914 <p>A larger list is
5915 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
5916 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
5917 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
5918 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
5919 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
5920 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
5921 collector.</p>
5922
5923       </div>
5924       <div class="tags">
5925
5926
5927         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>.
5928
5929
5930       </div>
5931     </div>
5932     <div class="padding"></div>
5933
5934     <div class="entry">
5935       <div class="title">
5936         <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>
5937       </div>
5938       <div class="date">
5939          1st June 2010
5940       </div>
5941       <div class="body">
5942         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
5943 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
5944 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
5945 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
5946 wait.</p>
5947
5948 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
5949 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
5950 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
5951 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
5952 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
5953 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
5954
5955 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
5956 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
5957 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
5958 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
5959 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
5960 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
5961 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
5962 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
5963
5964 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
5965
5966       </div>
5967       <div class="tags">
5968
5969
5970         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>.
5971
5972
5973       </div>
5974     </div>
5975     <div class="padding"></div>
5976
5977     <div class="entry">
5978       <div class="title">
5979         <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>
5980       </div>
5981       <div class="date">
5982         27th May 2010
5983       </div>
5984       <div class="body">
5985         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
5986 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
5987 issues are known and should be solved:
5988
5989 <p><ul>
5990
5991 <li>The wicd package seen to
5992 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
5993 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
5994 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
5995 seem to be on the case.</li>
5996
5997 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
5998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
5999 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
6000 maintainer is on the case.</li>
6001
6002 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
6003 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
6004 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
6005 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
6006 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
6007 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
6008 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
6009 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
6010
6011 </ul></p>
6012
6013 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
6014 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
6015 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
6016 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
6017
6018 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6019 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6020 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6021 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6022
6023 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
6024
6025       </div>
6026       <div class="tags">
6027
6028
6029         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>.
6030
6031
6032       </div>
6033     </div>
6034     <div class="padding"></div>
6035
6036     <div class="entry">
6037       <div class="title">
6038         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
6039       </div>
6040       <div class="date">
6041         22nd May 2010
6042       </div>
6043       <div class="body">
6044         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
6045 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
6046 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
6047 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
6048
6049 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
6050 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
6051 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
6052 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
6053 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
6054 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
6055 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
6056 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
6057 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
6058 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
6059 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
6060 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
6061 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
6062 going to work.</p>
6063
6064 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
6065 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
6066 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
6067 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
6068 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
6069 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
6070 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
6071 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
6072 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
6073 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
6074 Edu.</p>
6075
6076 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
6077 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
6078 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
6079 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
6080 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
6081 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
6082
6083 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
6084 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
6085
6086       </div>
6087       <div class="tags">
6088
6089
6090         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>.
6091
6092
6093       </div>
6094     </div>
6095     <div class="padding"></div>
6096
6097     <div class="entry">
6098       <div class="title">
6099         <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>
6100       </div>
6101       <div class="date">
6102         14th May 2010
6103       </div>
6104       <div class="body">
6105         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
6106 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
6107 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
6108 expected, if I am to believe the
6109 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6110 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
6111 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
6112 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
6113 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
6114 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
6115 version.</p>
6116
6117 More information about
6118 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6119 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
6120 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
6121 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6122
6123 <blockquote><pre>
6124 CONCURRENCY=none
6125 </pre></blockquote>
6126
6127 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6128 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6129 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6130 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6131
6132       </div>
6133       <div class="tags">
6134
6135
6136         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>.
6137
6138
6139       </div>
6140     </div>
6141     <div class="padding"></div>
6142
6143     <div class="entry">
6144       <div class="title">
6145         <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>
6146       </div>
6147       <div class="date">
6148         14th May 2010
6149       </div>
6150       <div class="body">
6151         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
6152 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
6153 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
6154 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
6155 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
6156 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
6157 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
6158 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
6159
6160 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
6161 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
6162 this on the collector host:</p>
6163
6164 <blockquote><pre>
6165 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
6166 </pre></blockquote>
6167
6168 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
6169 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
6170
6171 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6172 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6173 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6174 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6175 written yet.</p>
6176
6177       </div>
6178       <div class="tags">
6179
6180
6181         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>.
6182
6183
6184       </div>
6185     </div>
6186     <div class="padding"></div>
6187
6188     <div class="entry">
6189       <div class="title">
6190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6191       </div>
6192       <div class="date">
6193         13th May 2010
6194       </div>
6195       <div class="body">
6196         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6197 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6198 has been
6199 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6200
6201 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6202 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6203 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6204 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6205 based boot system.  Tollef is
6206 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6207 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6208 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6209 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6210 at the moment do not.</p>
6211
6212 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6213 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6214 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6215 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6216 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6217 way forward.</p>
6218
6219 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6220 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6221 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6222 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6223 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6224 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6225 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6226 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6227 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6228
6229       </div>
6230       <div class="tags">
6231
6232
6233         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>.
6234
6235
6236       </div>
6237     </div>
6238     <div class="padding"></div>
6239
6240     <div class="entry">
6241       <div class="title">
6242         <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>
6243       </div>
6244       <div class="date">
6245          6th May 2010
6246       </div>
6247       <div class="body">
6248         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6249 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6250 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6251 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6252 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6253 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6254 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6255
6256 <blockquote><pre>
6257 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6258 </pre></blockquote>
6259
6260 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6261 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6262 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6263 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6264 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6265 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6266 make this happen.</p>
6267
6268 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6269 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6270 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6271 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6272 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6273
6274 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6275 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6276 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6277 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6278
6279 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6280 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6281 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6282 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6283
6284       </div>
6285       <div class="tags">
6286
6287
6288         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>.
6289
6290
6291       </div>
6292     </div>
6293     <div class="padding"></div>
6294
6295     <div class="entry">
6296       <div class="title">
6297         <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>
6298       </div>
6299       <div class="date">
6300         27th July 2009
6301       </div>
6302       <div class="body">
6303         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6304 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6305 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6306 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6307 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6308 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6309 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6310
6311 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6312 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6313 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6314
6315       </div>
6316       <div class="tags">
6317
6318
6319         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>.
6320
6321
6322       </div>
6323     </div>
6324     <div class="padding"></div>
6325
6326     <div class="entry">
6327       <div class="title">
6328         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6329       </div>
6330       <div class="date">
6331         22nd July 2009
6332       </div>
6333       <div class="body">
6334         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6335 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6336 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6337 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6338 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6339 the package up to date.</p>
6340
6341 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6342 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6343 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6344 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6345 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6346 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6347 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6348 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6349 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6350 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6351 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6352 working on the future release.</p>
6353
6354 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6355 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6356
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="tags">
6359
6360
6361         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>.
6362
6363
6364       </div>
6365     </div>
6366     <div class="padding"></div>
6367
6368     <div class="entry">
6369       <div class="title">
6370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6371       </div>
6372       <div class="date">
6373         24th June 2009
6374       </div>
6375       <div class="body">
6376         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6377 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6378 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6379 funded
6380 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6381 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6382 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6383 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6384 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6385 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6386
6387 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6388 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
6389 boot:</p>
6390
6391 <ul>
6392
6393 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
6394
6395 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
6396    clock is in UTC.</li>
6397
6398 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
6399    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6400    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
6401
6402 </ul>
6403
6404 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
6405 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
6406 Villegas</a>.
6407
6408 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
6409 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
6410 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
6411 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
6412 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
6413 using this.</p>
6414
6415 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
6416 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
6417 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
6418 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
6419 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
6420 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
6421 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
6422
6423       </div>
6424       <div class="tags">
6425
6426
6427         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>.
6428
6429
6430       </div>
6431     </div>
6432     <div class="padding"></div>
6433
6434     <div class="entry">
6435       <div class="title">
6436         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
6437       </div>
6438       <div class="date">
6439         17th May 2009
6440       </div>
6441       <div class="body">
6442         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
6443 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
6444 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
6445 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
6446 dager siden kom
6447 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
6448 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
6449 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
6450 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
6451 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
6452
6453 <blockquote>
6454 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
6455 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
6456 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
6457 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
6458 </blockquote>
6459
6460 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
6461 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
6462 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
6463 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
6464 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
6465
6466 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
6467 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
6468 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
6469
6470       </div>
6471       <div class="tags">
6472
6473
6474         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>.
6475
6476
6477       </div>
6478     </div>
6479     <div class="padding"></div>
6480
6481     <div class="entry">
6482       <div class="title">
6483         <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>
6484       </div>
6485       <div class="date">
6486          7th May 2009
6487       </div>
6488       <div class="body">
6489         <p>Kom over
6490 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
6491 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
6492 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
6493 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
6494 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
6495 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
6496 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
6497
6498       </div>
6499       <div class="tags">
6500
6501
6502         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>.
6503
6504
6505       </div>
6506     </div>
6507     <div class="padding"></div>
6508
6509     <div class="entry">
6510       <div class="title">
6511         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
6512       </div>
6513       <div class="date">
6514          2nd May 2009
6515       </div>
6516       <div class="body">
6517         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
6518 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
6519 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
6520 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
6521 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
6522 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
6523 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
6524 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
6525 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
6526 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
6527 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
6528 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
6529 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
6530 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
6531 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
6532 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
6533 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
6534 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
6535 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
6536 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
6537
6538 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
6539 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
6540 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
6541 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
6542 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
6543 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
6544 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
6545 betydelige.</p>
6546
6547       </div>
6548       <div class="tags">
6549
6550
6551         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>.
6552
6553
6554       </div>
6555     </div>
6556     <div class="padding"></div>
6557
6558     <div class="entry">
6559       <div class="title">
6560         <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>
6561       </div>
6562       <div class="date">
6563          2nd May 2009
6564       </div>
6565       <div class="body">
6566         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
6567 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
6568 do not yet know them.</p>
6569
6570 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
6571 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
6572 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
6573 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
6574 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
6575 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
6576 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
6577 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
6578 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
6579 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
6580 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
6581
6582 <p>The second one is
6583 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
6584 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
6585 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
6586 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
6587 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
6588 and the company behind it is running
6589 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
6590 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
6591 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
6592 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
6593 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
6594 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
6595 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
6596 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
6597
6598 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
6599 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
6600 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
6601 surrounded by today.</p>
6602
6603       </div>
6604       <div class="tags">
6605
6606
6607         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>.
6608
6609
6610       </div>
6611     </div>
6612     <div class="padding"></div>
6613
6614     <div class="entry">
6615       <div class="title">
6616         <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>
6617       </div>
6618       <div class="date">
6619         28th April 2009
6620       </div>
6621       <div class="body">
6622         <p>Julien Blache
6623 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
6624 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
6625 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
6626 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
6627 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
6628 properties.</p>
6629
6630       </div>
6631       <div class="tags">
6632
6633
6634         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>.
6635
6636
6637       </div>
6638     </div>
6639     <div class="padding"></div>
6640
6641     <div class="entry">
6642       <div class="title">
6643         <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>
6644       </div>
6645       <div class="date">
6646         30th March 2009
6647       </div>
6648       <div class="body">
6649         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
6650 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
6651 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
6652 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
6653 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
6654 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
6655 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
6656 application.</p>
6657
6658 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
6659 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
6660 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
6661 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
6662 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
6663 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
6664 blocked from doing so.</p>
6665
6666 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
6667 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
6668 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
6669 requirements change.</p>
6670
6671 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
6672 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
6673 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
6674
6675       </div>
6676       <div class="tags">
6677
6678
6679         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>.
6680
6681
6682       </div>
6683     </div>
6684     <div class="padding"></div>
6685
6686     <div class="entry">
6687       <div class="title">
6688         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
6689       </div>
6690       <div class="date">
6691         29th March 2009
6692       </div>
6693       <div class="body">
6694         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
6695 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
6696 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
6697 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
6698 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
6699 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
6700 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
6701 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
6702 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
6703 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
6704 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
6705 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
6706 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
6707 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
6708 now. :)</p>
6709
6710       </div>
6711       <div class="tags">
6712
6713
6714         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>.
6715
6716
6717       </div>
6718     </div>
6719     <div class="padding"></div>
6720
6721     <div class="entry">
6722       <div class="title">
6723         <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>
6724       </div>
6725       <div class="date">
6726         29th March 2009
6727       </div>
6728       <div class="body">
6729         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
6730 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
6731 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
6732 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
6733 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
6734 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
6735
6736 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
6737 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
6738 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
6739 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
6740 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
6741 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
6742 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
6743 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
6744 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
6745 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
6746 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
6747 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
6748 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
6749
6750 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
6751 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
6752 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
6753 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
6754
6755 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
6756 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
6757
6758 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
6759 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
6760 new IETF work group?</p>
6761
6762       </div>
6763       <div class="tags">
6764
6765
6766         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>.
6767
6768
6769       </div>
6770     </div>
6771     <div class="padding"></div>
6772
6773     <div class="entry">
6774       <div class="title">
6775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
6776       </div>
6777       <div class="date">
6778         15th February 2009
6779       </div>
6780       <div class="body">
6781         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
6782 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
6783 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
6784 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
6785 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
6786 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
6787 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
6788 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
6789 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
6790 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
6791 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
6792 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
6793
6794       </div>
6795       <div class="tags">
6796
6797
6798         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>.
6799
6800
6801       </div>
6802     </div>
6803     <div class="padding"></div>
6804
6805     <div class="entry">
6806       <div class="title">
6807         <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>
6808       </div>
6809       <div class="date">
6810          7th December 2008
6811       </div>
6812       <div class="body">
6813         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
6814 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
6815 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
6816 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
6817 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
6818 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
6819 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
6820 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
6821
6822 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
6823 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
6824 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
6825 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
6826 of these cards.</p>
6827
6828       </div>
6829       <div class="tags">
6830
6831
6832         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>.
6833
6834
6835       </div>
6836     </div>
6837     <div class="padding"></div>
6838
6839     <div class="entry">
6840       <div class="title">
6841         <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>
6842       </div>
6843       <div class="date">
6844         25th November 2008
6845       </div>
6846       <div class="body">
6847         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
6848 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
6849 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
6850 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
6851 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
6852 notes are available on
6853 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
6854 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
6855 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
6856 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
6857 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
6858 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
6859 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
6860 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
6861 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
6862
6863 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
6864 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
6865
6866       </div>
6867       <div class="tags">
6868
6869
6870         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>.
6871
6872
6873       </div>
6874     </div>
6875     <div class="padding"></div>
6876
6877     <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>
6878     <div id="sidebar">
6879
6880
6881
6882 <h2>Archive</h2>
6883 <ul>
6884
6885 <li>2013
6886 <ul>
6887
6888 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
6889
6890 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
6891
6892 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
6893
6894 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
6895
6896 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6897
6898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
6899
6900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6901
6902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6903
6904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
6905
6906 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
6907
6908 </ul></li>
6909
6910 <li>2012
6911 <ul>
6912
6913 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
6914
6915 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
6916
6917 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
6918
6919 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
6920
6921 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
6922
6923 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
6924
6925 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
6926
6927 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6928
6929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
6930
6931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
6932
6933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
6934
6935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6936
6937 </ul></li>
6938
6939 <li>2011
6940 <ul>
6941
6942 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
6943
6944 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
6945
6946 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
6947
6948 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
6949
6950 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
6951
6952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
6953
6954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6955
6956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6957
6958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
6959
6960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6961
6962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6963
6964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
6965
6966 </ul></li>
6967
6968 <li>2010
6969 <ul>
6970
6971 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
6972
6973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
6974
6975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
6976
6977 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
6978
6979 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6980
6981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
6982
6983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
6984
6985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
6986
6987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
6988
6989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
6990
6991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
6992
6993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
6994
6995 </ul></li>
6996
6997 <li>2009
6998 <ul>
6999
7000 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
7001
7002 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
7003
7004 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
7005
7006 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
7007
7008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7009
7010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
7011
7012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
7013
7014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7015
7016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
7017
7018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7019
7020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7021
7022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7023
7024 </ul></li>
7025
7026 <li>2008
7027 <ul>
7028
7029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
7030
7031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7032
7033 </ul></li>
7034
7035 </ul>
7036
7037
7038
7039 <h2>Tags</h2>
7040 <ul>
7041
7042  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
7043
7044  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
7045
7046  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
7047
7048  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
7049
7050  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
7051
7052  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
7053
7054  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
7055
7056  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (88)</a></li>
7057
7058  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
7059
7060  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
7061
7062  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
7063
7064  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
7065
7066  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (223)</a></li>
7067
7068  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
7069
7070  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
7071
7072  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
7073
7074  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
7075
7076  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
7077
7078  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
7079
7080  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
7081
7082  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
7083
7084  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
7085
7086  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
7087
7088  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
7089
7090  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (3)</a></li>
7091
7092  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
7093
7094  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (236)</a></li>
7095
7096  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (156)</a></li>
7097
7098  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
7099
7100  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
7101
7102  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
7103
7104  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
7105
7106  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
7107
7108  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
7109
7110  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
7111
7112  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (8)</a></li>
7113
7114  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
7115
7116  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
7117
7118  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
7119
7120  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (32)</a></li>
7121
7122  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
7123
7124  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
7125
7126  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
7127
7128  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
7129
7130  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
7131
7132  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (20)</a></li>
7133
7134  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
7135
7136  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
7137
7138  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
7139
7140  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
7141
7142  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
7143
7144 </ul>
7145
7146
7147     </div>
7148     <p style="text-align: right">
7149  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
7150 </p>
7151
7152   </body>
7153 </html>