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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/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         25th September 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
  32 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
  33 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
  34 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
  35 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
  36 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
  37 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
  38 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
  39 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
  40 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
  41 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
  42 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
  43 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
  44
  45 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
  46 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
  47 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
  48 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
  49 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
  50 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
  51 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
  52 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
  53 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
  54 list</a>. :)</p>
  55
  56       </div>
  57       <div class="tags">
  58
  59
  60         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>.
  61
  62
  63       </div>
  64     </div>
  65     <div class="padding"></div>
  66
  67     <div class="entry">
  68       <div class="title">
  69         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
  70       </div>
  71       <div class="date">
  72         16th September 2014
  73       </div>
  74       <div class="body">
  75         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
  76 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
  77 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
  78 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
  79 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
  80 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
  81 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
  82 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
  83 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
  84 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
  85 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
  86 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
  87 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
  88 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
  89
  90 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
  91 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
  92 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
  93 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
  94 depend on the small and clever package
  95 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
  96 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
  97 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
  98 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
  99 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 100 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 101 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 102 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 103 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 104 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 105 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 106
 107 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 108 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 109 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 110 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 111 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 112 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 113 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 114 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 115 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 116 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 117 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 118 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 119 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 120 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 121 dialog.</p>
 122
 123 <p><table>
 124
 125 <tr>
 126 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 127 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 128 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 129 <th>Reduction</th>
 130 </tr>
 131
 132 <tr>
 133 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 134 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 135 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 136 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 137 </tr>
 138
 139 <tr>
 140 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 141 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 142 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 143 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 144 </tr>
 145
 146 <tr>
 147 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 148 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 149 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 150 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 151 </tr>
 152
 153 <tr>
 154 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 155 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 156 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 157 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 158 </tr>
 159
 160 <tr>
 161 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 162 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 163 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 164 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 165 </tr>
 166
 167 </table></p>
 168
 169 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 170 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 171 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 172 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 173 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 174 installed.</p>
 175
 176 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 177 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 178 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 179 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 180 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 181 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 182 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 183 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 184 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 185 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 186 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 187 for the entire installation.</p>
 188
 189 <p>I've implemented this in the
 190 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 191 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 192 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 193 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 194 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 195
 196 <p><blockquote><pre>
 197 #!/bin/sh
 198 set -e
 199 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 200 info() {
 201     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 202 }
 203 error() {
 204     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 205 }
 206 override_install() {
 207     apt-install eatmydata || true
 208     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 209         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 210             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 211             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 212             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 213                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 214                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 215                     > /target$file.edu
 216                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 217                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 218                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 219                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 220             else
 221                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 222             fi
 223         done
 224     else
 225         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 226     fi
 227 }
 228
 229 override_install
 230 </pre></blockquote></p>
 231
 232 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 233 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 234
 235 <p><blockquote><pre>
 236 #! /bin/sh -e
 237 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 238 error() {
 239     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 240 }
 241 remove_install_override() {
 242     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 243         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 244         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 245             rm /target$file
 246             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 247                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 248             rm /target$file.edu
 249         else
 250             error "Missing divert for $file."
 251         fi
 252     done
 253     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 254 }
 255
 256 remove_install_override
 257 </pre></blockquote></p>
 258
 259 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 260 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 261 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 262
 263 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 264 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 265 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 266 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 267 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 268 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 269 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 270 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 271 everyone.</p>
 272
 273 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 274 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 275 <ahref="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711.  An updated
 276 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 277
 278       </div>
 279       <div class="tags">
 280
 281
 282         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 283
 284
 285       </div>
 286     </div>
 287     <div class="padding"></div>
 288
 289     <div class="entry">
 290       <div class="title">
 291         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
 292       </div>
 293       <div class="date">
 294         10th September 2014
 295       </div>
 296       <div class="body">
 297         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 298 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 299 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 300 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 301 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 302 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 303 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 304 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 305 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 306 those problems are gone now.</p>
 307
 308 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 309 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 310 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 311 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 312 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 313
 314 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 315 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 316 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 317
 318 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 319 line:</p>
 320
 321 <p><blockquote><pre>
 322 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 323 </pre></blockquote></p>
 324
 325 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 326 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 327 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 328 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 329
 330 <p><blockquote><pre>
 331 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 332 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 333 %
 334 </pre></blockquote></p>
 335
 336 <p>Now if only
 337 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 338 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 339 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 340 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 341 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 342 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 343 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 344 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 345 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 346
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="tags">
 349
 350
 351         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 352
 353
 354       </div>
 355     </div>
 356     <div class="padding"></div>
 357
 358     <div class="entry">
 359       <div class="title">
 360         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
 361       </div>
 362       <div class="date">
 363         17th June 2014
 364       </div>
 365       <div class="body">
 366         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 367 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 368 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 369 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 370 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 371
 372 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 373 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 374 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 375 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 376 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 377 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 378 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 379 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 380 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 381 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 382 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 383 goals.</p>
 384
 385 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 386 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 387 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 388 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 389 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 390 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 391 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 392 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 393 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 394 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 395 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 396 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 397 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 398 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 399 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 400 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 401 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 402 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 403 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 404 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 405 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 406 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 407 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 408 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 409
 410 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 411 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 412 track the English original.  For this we use the
 413 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 414 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 415 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 416 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 417 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 418 files), which the translations update with the native language
 419 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 420 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 421 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 422 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 423 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 424 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 425 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 426 of the documentation.</p>
 427
 428 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 429 recommend using
 430 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 431 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 432 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 433 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 434 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 435 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 436 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 437 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 438
 439 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 440 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 441 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 442 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 443 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 444 translated images by storing translated versions in
 445 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 446 package maintainers know more.</p>
 447
 448 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 449 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 450 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 451 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 452 PDF version</a> or the
 453 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 454 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 455 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 456
 457 <p>To learn more, check out
 458 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 459 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 460 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 461 manual on the wiki</a> and
 462 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 463 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 464
 465       </div>
 466       <div class="tags">
 467
 468
 469         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 470
 471
 472       </div>
 473     </div>
 474     <div class="padding"></div>
 475
 476     <div class="entry">
 477       <div class="title">
 478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
 479       </div>
 480       <div class="date">
 481         23rd April 2014
 482       </div>
 483       <div class="body">
 484         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 485 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 486 So I implemented one, using
 487 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 488 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 489 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 490 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 491 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 492 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 493
 494 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 495 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 496 packages to install.  The first part is in
 497 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 498 this:</p>
 499
 500 <p><blockquote><pre>
 501 Task: isenkram
 502 Section: hardware
 503 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 504  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 505  proposed.
 506 Test-new-install: mark show
 507 Relevance: 8
 508 Packages: for-current-hardware
 509 </pre></blockquote></p>
 510
 511 <p>The second part is in
 512 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
 513 this:</p>
 514
 515 <p><blockquote><pre>
 516 #!/bin/sh
 517 #
 518 (
 519     isenkram-lookup
 520     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 521 ) | sort -u
 522 </pre></blockquote></p>
 523
 524 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
 525 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
 526 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
 527 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
 528 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
 529 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
 530
 531 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
 532 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
 533 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
 534 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
 535 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
 536 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
 537 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
 538 the python-apt code (bug
 539 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
 540 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
 541 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
 542 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
 543 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
 544 unstable today.</p>
 545
 546 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
 547 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
 548 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
 549 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
 550 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
 551 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
 552 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
 553 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
 554 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
 555
 556 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
 557 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
 558 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
 559 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
 560 package.  See also
 561 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
 562 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
 563 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
 564 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
 565
 566       </div>
 567       <div class="tags">
 568
 569
 570         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>.
 571
 572
 573       </div>
 574     </div>
 575     <div class="padding"></div>
 576
 577     <div class="entry">
 578       <div class="title">
 579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
 580       </div>
 581       <div class="date">
 582         15th April 2014
 583       </div>
 584       <div class="body">
 585         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 586 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
 587 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
 588 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
 589 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
 590 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
 591
 592 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
 593 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
 594 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
 595 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
 596 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
 597 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
 598 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
 599
 600 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
 601 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
 602 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
 603 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
 604 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
 605 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
 606 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
 607 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
 608 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
 609 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
 610 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
 611 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
 612
 613 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
 614 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
 615 become root:</p>
 616
 617 <p><pre>
 618 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 619   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 620   u-boot-tools
 621 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 622   freedom-maker
 623 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
 624 </pre></p>
 625
 626 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
 627 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
 628 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
 629 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
 630 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
 631 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
 632 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
 633 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
 634
 635 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
 636 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
 637 the preseed values:</p>
 638
 639 <p><pre>
 640 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
 641 </pre></p>
 642
 643 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
 644 it still work.</p>
 645
 646 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
 647 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
 648 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
 649 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
 650 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
 651 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
 652 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
 653
 654 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
 655 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
 656 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
 657 irc.debian.org)</a> and
 658 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 659 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 660
 661       </div>
 662       <div class="tags">
 663
 664
 665         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>.
 666
 667
 668       </div>
 669     </div>
 670     <div class="padding"></div>
 671
 672     <div class="entry">
 673       <div class="title">
 674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
 675       </div>
 676       <div class="date">
 677          9th April 2014
 678       </div>
 679       <div class="body">
 680         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
 681 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
 682 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
 683 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
 684 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
 685 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
 686 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
 687 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
 688 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
 689 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
 690 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
 691 have looked at a system called
 692 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
 693 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
 694
 695 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
 696 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
 697 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
 698 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
 699 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
 700 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
 701 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
 702 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
 703 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
 704 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
 705 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
 706 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
 707 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
 708
 709 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
 710 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
 711 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
 712 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
 713 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
 714 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
 715 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
 716 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
 717 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
 718 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
 719 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
 720 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
 721 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
 722 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
 723 account.</p>
 724
 725 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
 726 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
 727 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
 728 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
 729 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
 730 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
 731 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
 732
 733 <p><blockquote><pre>
 734 [s3c]
 735 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 736 backend-login: API-login
 737 backend-password: API-password
 738 fs-passphrase: local-password
 739 </pre></blockquote></p>
 740
 741 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
 742 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
 743 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
 744 details and password to create it:</p>
 745
 746 <p><blockquote><pre>
 747 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
 748 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 749   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 750 Enter backend login:
 751 Enter backend password:
 752 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
 753 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
 754 Enter encryption password:
 755 Confirm encryption password:
 756 Generating random encryption key...
 757 Creating metadata tables...
 758 Dumping metadata...
 759 ..objects..
 760 ..blocks..
 761 ..inodes..
 762 ..inode_blocks..
 763 ..symlink_targets..
 764 ..names..
 765 ..contents..
 766 ..ext_attributes..
 767 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 768 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
 769 # </pre></blockquote></p>
 770
 771 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
 772
 773 <p><blockquote><pre>
 774 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 775   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
 776 Using 4 upload threads.
 777 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
 778 Reading metadata...
 779 ..objects..
 780 ..blocks..
 781 ..inodes..
 782 ..inode_blocks..
 783 ..symlink_targets..
 784 ..names..
 785 ..contents..
 786 ..ext_attributes..
 787 Mounting filesystem...
 788 # df -h /s3ql
 789 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
 790 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
 791 #
 792 </pre></blockquote></p>
 793
 794 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
 795 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
 796 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
 797 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
 798 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
 799 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
 800
 801 <p><blockquote><pre>
 802 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
 803 #
 804 </pre></blockquote></p>
 805
 806 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
 807 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
 808 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
 809 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
 810 file system:</p>
 811
 812 <p><blockquote><pre>
 813 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 814 Using cached metadata.
 815 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
 816 Checking DB integrity...
 817 Creating temporary extra indices...
 818 Checking lost+found...
 819 Checking cached objects...
 820 Checking names (refcounts)...
 821 Checking contents (names)...
 822 Checking contents (inodes)...
 823 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
 824 Checking objects (reference counts)...
 825 Checking objects (backend)...
 826 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
 827 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
 828 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
 829 Checking objects (sizes)...
 830 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
 831 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
 832 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
 833 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
 834 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
 835 Checking inodes (sizes)...
 836 Checking extended attributes (names)...
 837 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
 838 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
 839 Checking directory reachability...
 840 Checking unix conventions...
 841 Checking referential integrity...
 842 Dropping temporary indices...
 843 Backing up old metadata...
 844 Dumping metadata...
 845 ..objects..
 846 ..blocks..
 847 ..inodes..
 848 ..inode_blocks..
 849 ..symlink_targets..
 850 ..names..
 851 ..contents..
 852 ..ext_attributes..
 853 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 854 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
 855 #
 856 </pre></blockquote></p>
 857
 858 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
 859 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
 860 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
 861 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
 862 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
 863 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
 864 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
 865 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
 866 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
 867 working set.</p>
 868
 869 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
 870 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
 871 busy:</p>
 872
 873 <p><blockquote><pre>
 874 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 875   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
 876 Using 8 upload threads.
 877 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
 878 #
 879 </pre></blockquote></p>
 880
 881 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
 882 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
 883 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
 884 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
 885 s3qlctrl:
 886
 887 <p><blockquote><pre>
 888 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
 889 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
 890 #
 891 </pre></blockquote></p>
 892
 893 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
 894 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
 895 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
 896 a report:</p>
 897
 898 <p><blockquote><pre>
 899 # s3qlstat /s3ql
 900 Directory entries:    9141
 901 Inodes:               9143
 902 Data blocks:          8851
 903 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
 904 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
 905 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
 906 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
 907 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
 908 #
 909 </pre></blockquote></p>
 910
 911 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
 912 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
 913 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
 914 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
 915 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
 916 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
 917 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
 918 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
 919 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
 920 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
 921 best.</p>
 922
 923 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
 924 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
 925 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
 926 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
 927 poster is titled
 928 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
 929 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
 930 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
 931 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
 932 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
 933
 934 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
 935 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
 936 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
 937 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
 938 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
 939 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
 940 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
 941 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
 942
 943 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
 944 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
 945 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
 946 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
 947 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
 948 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
 949 only read from it.</p>
 950
 951 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 952 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 953 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 954
 955       </div>
 956       <div class="tags">
 957
 958
 959         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 960
 961
 962       </div>
 963     </div>
 964     <div class="padding"></div>
 965
 966     <div class="entry">
 967       <div class="title">
 968         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
 969       </div>
 970       <div class="date">
 971         14th March 2014
 972       </div>
 973       <div class="body">
 974         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 975 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
 976 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
 977 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
 978 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
 979 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
 980 release (0.2).</p>
 981
 982 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
 983 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
 984 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
 985 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
 986 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
 987 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
 988 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
 989 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
 990 and build using
 991 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
 992 with a user with sudo access to become root:
 993
 994 <pre>
 995 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 996   freedom-maker
 997 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 998   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 999   u-boot-tools
1000 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1001 </pre>
1002
1003 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1004 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1005 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1006 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1007 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1008 kpartx call.</p>
1009
1010 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1011 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1012 the preseed values:</p>
1013
1014 <pre>
1015 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1016 </pre>
1017
1018 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1019 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1020 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1021 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1022 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1023 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1024
1025 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1026 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1027 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1028 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1029 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1030 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1031
1032       </div>
1033       <div class="tags">
1034
1035
1036         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>.
1037
1038
1039       </div>
1040     </div>
1041     <div class="padding"></div>
1042
1043     <div class="entry">
1044       <div class="title">
1045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
1046       </div>
1047       <div class="date">
1048         22nd February 2014
1049       </div>
1050       <div class="body">
1051         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1052 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1053 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1054 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1055 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1056 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1057 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1058 proper home since then.</p>
1059
1060 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1061 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1062 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1063 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1064 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1065
1066 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1067 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1068 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1069 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1070 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1071 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1072 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1073 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1074 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1075
1076       </div>
1077       <div class="tags">
1078
1079
1080         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>.
1081
1082
1083       </div>
1084     </div>
1085     <div class="padding"></div>
1086
1087     <div class="entry">
1088       <div class="title">
1089         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1090       </div>
1091       <div class="date">
1092          3rd February 2014
1093       </div>
1094       <div class="body">
1095         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1096 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1097 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1098 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1099 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1100 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1101 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1102 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
1103 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1104
1105 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1106 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1107 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1108 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1109 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1110 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1111
1112 <p><blockquote><pre>
1113 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1114 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1115 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1116 dhclient /dev/eth0
1117 </pre></blockquote></p>
1118
1119 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1120 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1121 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1122
1123 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1124 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1125 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1126 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1127 side.</p>
1128
1129 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1130 stuff:</p>
1131
1132 <p><blockquote><pre>
1133 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1134 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1135 EOF
1136 apt-get update
1137 apt-get dist-upgrade
1138 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1139     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1140 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1141 </pre></blockquote></p>
1142
1143 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1144 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1145 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1146 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1147 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1148 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1149 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1150 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1151 ssh instead.
1152
1153 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1154 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1155 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1156 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1157 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1158 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1159
1160 <p><blockquote><pre>
1161 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1162 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1163 EOF
1164 </pre></blockquote></p>
1165
1166 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1167 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1168 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1169 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1170
1171 <p><blockquote><pre>
1172 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1173 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1174 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1175 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1176 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1177 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1178 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1179 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1180 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1181 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1182 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1183 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1184 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1185 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1186 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1187 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1188 #
1189 </pre></blockquote></p>
1190
1191 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1192 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1193 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1194 command line stuff.<p>
1195
1196       </div>
1197       <div class="tags">
1198
1199
1200         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>.
1201
1202
1203       </div>
1204     </div>
1205     <div class="padding"></div>
1206
1207     <div class="entry">
1208       <div class="title">
1209         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1210       </div>
1211       <div class="date">
1212         14th January 2014
1213       </div>
1214       <div class="body">
1215         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1216 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1217 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1218 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1219 the source.  The company behind it provide
1220 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1221 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1222 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1223 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1224 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1225 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1226 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1227 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1228 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1229 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1230 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1231 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1232 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1233 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1234 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1235 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1236 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1237 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1238 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1239
1240 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1241
1242 <ul>
1243
1244   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1245   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1246   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1247
1248 </ul>
1249
1250 <p>You can
1251 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1252 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1253 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1254 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1255 include a test suite check.</p>
1256
1257       </div>
1258       <div class="tags">
1259
1260
1261         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1262
1263
1264       </div>
1265     </div>
1266     <div class="padding"></div>
1267
1268     <div class="entry">
1269       <div class="title">
1270         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1271       </div>
1272       <div class="date">
1273         24th November 2013
1274       </div>
1275       <div class="body">
1276         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1277 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1278 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1279 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1280 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1281 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1282 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1283 is working on.  I checked the
1284 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1285 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1286 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1287 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1288 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1289 These are the release notes:</p>
1290
1291 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1292
1293 <ul>
1294
1295   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1296    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1297    up.</li>
1298
1299   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1300
1301   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1302    Matthias Klose.</li>
1303
1304   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1305    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1306
1307   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1308    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1309    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1310
1311 </ul>
1312
1313 <p>You can
1314 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1315 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1316 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1317 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1318 include a testsuite check.</p>
1319
1320       </div>
1321       <div class="tags">
1322
1323
1324         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1325
1326
1327       </div>
1328     </div>
1329     <div class="padding"></div>
1330
1331     <div class="entry">
1332       <div class="title">
1333         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1334       </div>
1335       <div class="date">
1336          2nd November 2013
1337       </div>
1338       <div class="body">
1339         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1340 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1341 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1342 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1343 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1344
1345 <p><pre>
1346 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1347 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1348 # Provides:          rsyslog
1349 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1350 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1351 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1352 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1353 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1354 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1355 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1356 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1357 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1358 ### END INIT INFO
1359 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1360 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1361 </pre></p>
1362
1363 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1364 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1365 info/comments.</p>
1366
1367 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1368 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1369
1370 <p><pre>
1371 #!/bin/sh
1372
1373 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1374 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1375 # and status_of_proc is working.
1376 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1377
1378 #
1379 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1380
1381 #
1382 do_start()
1383 {
1384         # Return
1385         #   0 if daemon has been started
1386         #   1 if daemon was already running
1387         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1388         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1389                 || return 1
1390         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1391                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1392                 || return 2
1393         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1394         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1395         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1396 }
1397
1398 #
1399 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1400 #
1401 do_stop()
1402 {
1403         # Return
1404         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1405         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1406         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1407         #   other if a failure occurred
1408         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1409         RETVAL="$?"
1410         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1411         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1412         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1413         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1414         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1415         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1416         # sleep for some time.
1417         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1418         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1419         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1420         rm -f $PIDFILE
1421         return "$RETVAL"
1422 }
1423
1424 #
1425 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1426 #
1427 do_reload() {
1428         #
1429         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1430         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1431         # then implement that here.
1432         #
1433         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1434         return 0
1435 }
1436
1437 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1438 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1439 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1440 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1441     script="$1"
1442     shift
1443     . $script
1444 else
1445     exit 0
1446 fi
1447
1448 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1449 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1450
1451 # Exit if the package is not installed
1452 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1453
1454 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1455 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1456
1457 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1458 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1459
1460 case "$1" in
1461   start)
1462         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1463         do_start
1464         case "$?" in
1465                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1466                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1467         esac
1468         ;;
1469   stop)
1470         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1471         do_stop
1472         case "$?" in
1473                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1474                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1475         esac
1476         ;;
1477   status)
1478         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1479         ;;
1480   #reload|force-reload)
1481         #
1482         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1483         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1484         #
1485         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1486         #do_reload
1487         #log_end_msg $?
1488         #;;
1489   restart|force-reload)
1490         #
1491         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1492         # 'force-reload' alias
1493         #
1494         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1495         do_stop
1496         case "$?" in
1497           0|1)
1498                 do_start
1499                 case "$?" in
1500                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1501                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1502                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1503                 esac
1504                 ;;
1505           *)
1506                 # Failed to stop
1507                 log_end_msg 1
1508                 ;;
1509         esac
1510         ;;
1511   *)
1512         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1513         exit 3
1514         ;;
1515 esac
1516
1517 :
1518 </pre></p>
1519
1520 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1521 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1522 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1523 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1524
1525 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1526 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1527 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1528 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1529 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1530
1531       </div>
1532       <div class="tags">
1533
1534
1535         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>.
1536
1537
1538       </div>
1539     </div>
1540     <div class="padding"></div>
1541
1542     <div class="entry">
1543       <div class="title">
1544         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
1545       </div>
1546       <div class="date">
1547          1st November 2013
1548       </div>
1549       <div class="body">
1550         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1551 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1552 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1553 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1554 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1555 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1556 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1557 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1558 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1559 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1560 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1561 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1562
1563 <p>The source is now available from
1564 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
1565
1566       </div>
1567       <div class="tags">
1568
1569
1570         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>.
1571
1572
1573       </div>
1574     </div>
1575     <div class="padding"></div>
1576
1577     <div class="entry">
1578       <div class="title">
1579         <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>
1580       </div>
1581       <div class="date">
1582         27th October 2013
1583       </div>
1584       <div class="body">
1585         <p>The
1586 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1587 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1588 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1589 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1590 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1591 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1592 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1593 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1594 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1595 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1596 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1597 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1598
1599 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1600 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1601 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1602 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1603 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1604 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1605 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1606 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1607 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1608 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1609 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1610 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1611 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1612 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1613 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1614 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1615 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1616 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1617 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1618 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1619 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1620 available from
1621 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1622 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1623
1624 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1625 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1626 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1627 list:</p>
1628
1629 <p><pre>
1630 #!/bin/sh
1631 set -e # Exit on first error
1632 rootdir="$1"
1633 cd "$rootdir"
1634 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1635 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1636 EOF
1637 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1638 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1639 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1640     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1641 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1642 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1643 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1644 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1645 </pre></p>
1646
1647 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1648 to build the image:</p>
1649
1650 <pre>
1651 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1652     --variant minbase \
1653     --arch armel \
1654     --distribution jessie \
1655     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1656     --image test.img \
1657     --size 600M \
1658     --bootsize 64M \
1659     --boottype vfat \
1660     --log-level debug \
1661     --verbose \
1662     --no-kernel \
1663     --no-extlinux \
1664     --root-password raspberry \
1665     --hostname raspberrypi \
1666     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1667     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1668     --package netbase \
1669     --package git-core \
1670     --package binutils \
1671     --package ca-certificates \
1672     --package wget \
1673     --package kmod
1674 </pre></p>
1675
1676 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1677 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1678 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1679 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1680 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1681 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1682 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1683
1684 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1685 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1686 build dependency list.</p>
1687
1688 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1689 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1690 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1691 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1692
1693       </div>
1694       <div class="tags">
1695
1696
1697         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>.
1698
1699
1700       </div>
1701     </div>
1702     <div class="padding"></div>
1703
1704     <div class="entry">
1705       <div class="title">
1706         <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>
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="date">
1709         15th October 2013
1710       </div>
1711       <div class="body">
1712         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1713 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1714 these. :)</p>
1715
1716 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
1717 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
1718 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1719 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
1720 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
1721 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
1722 hope you will to. :)</p>
1723
1724 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1725 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
1726 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
1727 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
1728 donated.  Are you next?</p>
1729
1730 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1731 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1732 statement under the heading
1733 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
1734 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1735 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
1736 too.</p>
1737
1738       </div>
1739       <div class="tags">
1740
1741
1742         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>.
1743
1744
1745       </div>
1746     </div>
1747     <div class="padding"></div>
1748
1749     <div class="entry">
1750       <div class="title">
1751         <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>
1752       </div>
1753       <div class="date">
1754         27th September 2013
1755       </div>
1756       <div class="body">
1757         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
1758 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
1759 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
1760 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
1761
1762 <ul>
1763
1764 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
1765 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
1766
1767 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
1768 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1769
1770 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
1771 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
1772 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
1773 (Youtube)</li>
1774
1775 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
1776 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
1777
1778 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
1779 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1780
1781 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
1782 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
1783 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
1784
1785 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
1786 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
1787 (Youtube)</li>
1788
1789 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
1790 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
1791
1792 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
1793 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
1794
1795 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
1796 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
1797 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
1798
1799 </ul>
1800
1801 <p>A larger list is available from
1802 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
1803 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
1804
1805 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
1806 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
1807 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
1808 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
1809 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
1810 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
1811 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
1812 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
1813 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
1814 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1815 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1816
1817       </div>
1818       <div class="tags">
1819
1820
1821         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>.
1822
1823
1824       </div>
1825     </div>
1826     <div class="padding"></div>
1827
1828     <div class="entry">
1829       <div class="title">
1830         <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>
1831       </div>
1832       <div class="date">
1833         10th September 2013
1834       </div>
1835       <div class="body">
1836         <p>I was introduced to the
1837 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
1838 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
1839 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
1840 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
1841 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
1842 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
1843 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
1844 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
1845
1846 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
1847 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
1848 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
1849 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
1850 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
1851
1852 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
1853 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
1854 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
1855 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
1856 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
1857 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
1858 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
1859 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
1860 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
1861 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
1862 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
1863 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
1864 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
1865 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
1866 missing in Debian).</p>
1867
1868 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
1869 scripts
1870 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
1871 and a administrative web interface
1872 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
1873 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
1874 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
1875 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
1876 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
1877 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
1878 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
1879 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
1880 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
1881 this is really working yet, see
1882 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
1883 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
1884 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
1885 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
1886 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
1887 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
1888 with lots of half baked features.</p>
1889
1890 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
1891 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
1892 at.</p>
1893
1894 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
1895
1896 <ol>
1897
1898 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
1899 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
1900 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
1901 to the Debian installer:<p>
1902 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
1903
1904 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
1905 install on.</li>
1906
1907 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
1908 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
1909
1910 </ol>
1911
1912 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
1913
1914 <ol>
1915
1916 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
1917 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
1918 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
1919 <pre>
1920 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
1921 </pre></li>
1922 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
1923 <pre>
1924 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
1925    apt-key add -
1926 apt-get update
1927 apt-get install freedombox-setup
1928 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
1929 </pre></li>
1930 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
1931
1932 </ol>
1933
1934 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
1935 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
1936 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
1937 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
1938 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
1939
1940 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
1941 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
1942 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
1943 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
1944
1945 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
1946 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
1947 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
1948 irc.debian.org and the
1949 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
1950 mailing list</a>.</p>
1951
1952 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
1953 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
1954 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
1955 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
1956 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
1957 default password is 'secret'.</p>
1958
1959       </div>
1960       <div class="tags">
1961
1962
1963         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>.
1964
1965
1966       </div>
1967     </div>
1968     <div class="padding"></div>
1969
1970     <div class="entry">
1971       <div class="title">
1972         <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>
1973       </div>
1974       <div class="date">
1975         18th August 2013
1976       </div>
1977       <div class="body">
1978         <p>Earlier, I reported about
1979 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
1980 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
1981 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
1982 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
1983 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
1984 currently on the disk.</p>
1985
1986 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
1987 <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>
1988 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
1989 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
1990 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
1991 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
1992 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
1993 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
1994 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
1995 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
1996 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
1997 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
1998 the broken disks.</p>
1999
2000       </div>
2001       <div class="tags">
2002
2003
2004         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>.
2005
2006
2007       </div>
2008     </div>
2009     <div class="padding"></div>
2010
2011     <div class="entry">
2012       <div class="title">
2013         <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>
2014       </div>
2015       <div class="date">
2016         17th July 2013
2017       </div>
2018       <div class="body">
2019         <p>Today I switched to
2020 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2021 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2022 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2023 <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
2024 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2025 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2026 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2027 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2028 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2029 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2030 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2031 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2032 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2033 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2034 station from now on.</p>
2035
2036 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2037 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2038 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2039 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2040 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2041 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2042 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2043 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2044 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2045 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2046 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2047 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2048
2049 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2050 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2051 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2052 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2053 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2054 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2055 parameters are tuned:</p>
2056
2057 <ul>
2058
2059 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2060     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2061
2062 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2063     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2064     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2065
2066 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2067     systems.</li>
2068
2069 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2070     /etc/fstab.</li>
2071
2072 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2073
2074 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2075     cron.daily).</li>
2076
2077 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2078     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2079
2080 </ul>
2081
2082 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2083 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2084 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2085 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2086 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2087 from getting the data on the disk (see
2088 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2089 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2090 right thing to do.</p>
2091
2092 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2093 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2094 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2095
2096 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2097 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2098 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2099 instead of during my work.</p>
2100
2101 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2102 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2103
2104 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2105 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2106 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2107
2108 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2109 there.</p>
2110
2111 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2112 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2113 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2114 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2115 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2116 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2117 back.</p>
2118
2119       </div>
2120       <div class="tags">
2121
2122
2123         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>.
2124
2125
2126       </div>
2127     </div>
2128     <div class="padding"></div>
2129
2130     <div class="entry">
2131       <div class="title">
2132         <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>
2133       </div>
2134       <div class="date">
2135         10th July 2013
2136       </div>
2137       <div class="body">
2138         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2139 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2140 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2141 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2142 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2143 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2144 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2145 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2146
2147 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2148 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2149 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2150 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2151 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2152 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2153 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2154 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2155 lock up when I download a new
2156 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2157 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2158 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2159
2160 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2161 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2162 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2163 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2164 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2165 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2166
2167 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2168 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2169 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2170 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2171 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2172 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2173
2174 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2175 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2176 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2177 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2178 exist).</p>
2179
2180       </div>
2181       <div class="tags">
2182
2183
2184         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>.
2185
2186
2187       </div>
2188     </div>
2189     <div class="padding"></div>
2190
2191     <div class="entry">
2192       <div class="title">
2193         <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>
2194       </div>
2195       <div class="date">
2196          9th July 2013
2197       </div>
2198       <div class="body">
2199         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2200 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2201 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2202 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2203 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2204 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2205 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2206
2207 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2208 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2209 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2210 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2211 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2212
2213       </div>
2214       <div class="tags">
2215
2216
2217         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>.
2218
2219
2220       </div>
2221     </div>
2222     <div class="padding"></div>
2223
2224     <div class="entry">
2225       <div class="title">
2226         <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>
2227       </div>
2228       <div class="date">
2229          5th July 2013
2230       </div>
2231       <div class="body">
2232         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2233 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2234 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2235 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2236 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2237 ended up picking a
2238 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2239 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2240 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2241 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2242 on that below.</p>
2243
2244 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2245 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2246 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2247 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2248 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2249 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2250 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2251 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2252 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2253
2254 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2255 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2256 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2257 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2258 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2259 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2260 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2261
2262 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2263 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2264
2265 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2266 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2267 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2268 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2269 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2270 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2271 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2272 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2273 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2274 kernel developers as
2275 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2276 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2277 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2278 Lenovo forums, both for
2279 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2280 2012-11-10</a> and for
2281 <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
2282 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2283 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2284 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2285 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2286 There is even a
2287 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2288 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2289 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2290
2291 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2292 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2293 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2294 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2295 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2296 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2297 fixed. :)</p>
2298
2299       </div>
2300       <div class="tags">
2301
2302
2303         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>.
2304
2305
2306       </div>
2307     </div>
2308     <div class="padding"></div>
2309
2310     <div class="entry">
2311       <div class="title">
2312         <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>
2313       </div>
2314       <div class="date">
2315          4th July 2013
2316       </div>
2317       <div class="body">
2318         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2319 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2320 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2321 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2322 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2323 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2324 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2325 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2326 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2327
2328 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2329 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2330 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2331 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2332 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2333 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2334 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2335
2336 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2337 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2338 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2339 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2340 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2341 new laptop now. :)</p>
2342
2343 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2344
2345       </div>
2346       <div class="tags">
2347
2348
2349         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>.
2350
2351
2352       </div>
2353     </div>
2354     <div class="padding"></div>
2355
2356     <div class="entry">
2357       <div class="title">
2358         <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>
2359       </div>
2360       <div class="date">
2361         25th June 2013
2362       </div>
2363       <div class="body">
2364         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2365 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2366 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2367 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2368 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2369 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2370 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2371 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2372 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2373 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2374 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2375
2376 <p><pre>
2377 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2378 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2379 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2380 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2381 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2382 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2383 firmware-ipw2x00
2384 firmware-ipw2x00
2385 Preconfiguring packages ...
2386 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2387 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2388 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2389 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2390 #
2391 </pre></p>
2392
2393 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2394 printed instead:</p>
2395
2396 <p><pre>
2397 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2398 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2399 #
2400 </pre></p>
2401
2402 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2403 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2404
2405 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2406 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2407 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2408 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2409 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2410 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2411 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2412 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2413 machine.</p>
2414
2415 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2416 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2417 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2418 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2419 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2420 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2421
2422       </div>
2423       <div class="tags">
2424
2425
2426         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>.
2427
2428
2429       </div>
2430     </div>
2431     <div class="padding"></div>
2432
2433     <div class="entry">
2434       <div class="title">
2435         <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>
2436       </div>
2437       <div class="date">
2438         11th June 2013
2439       </div>
2440       <div class="body">
2441         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2442 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2443 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2444 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2445 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2446 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2447 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2448 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2449 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2450 i915 driver used by the
2451 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2452 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2453
2454 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2455 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2456 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2457 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2458 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2459
2460 <pre>
2461 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2462 update-initramfs -u -k all
2463 </pre>
2464
2465 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2466 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2467 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2468 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2469 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2470 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2471 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2472 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2473 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2474 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2475 number.</p>
2476
2477 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2478 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2479
2480 <p><pre>
2481 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2482     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2483     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2484  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2485  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2486     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2487  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2488     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2489  Latency: 0
2490  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2491  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2492  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2493  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2494  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2495  Capabilities: <access denied>
2496  Kernel driver in use: i915
2497 </pre></p>
2498
2499 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2500
2501 <p><pre>
2502 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2503        ...
2504         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2505         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2506        ...
2507 }
2508 </pre></p>
2509
2510 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2511 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
2512 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2513 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2514 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2515 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2516 yet shown up in
2517 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2518 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2519 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2520 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2521 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2522 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2523
2524 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2525 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2526 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2527 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2528 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2529 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2530 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2531 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2532 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2533 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2534 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2535 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2536
2537 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2538 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2539 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2540 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2541 backlight.</p>
2542
2543       </div>
2544       <div class="tags">
2545
2546
2547         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>.
2548
2549
2550       </div>
2551     </div>
2552     <div class="padding"></div>
2553
2554     <div class="entry">
2555       <div class="title">
2556         <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>
2557       </div>
2558       <div class="date">
2559         27th May 2013
2560       </div>
2561       <div class="body">
2562         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2563 <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
2564 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2565 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2566 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2567 and Windows 8.</p>
2568
2569 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2570 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2571 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2572 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2573 enough to tell.</p>
2574
2575 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2576 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2577 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2578 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2579 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2580 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2581 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2582 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2583 to follow.</p>
2584
2585 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2586 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2587 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2588 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2589 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2590 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2591 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2592 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2593
2594 <p>I've updated the
2595 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2596 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2597 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2598 machine.</p>
2599
2600 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2601 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
2602
2603       </div>
2604       <div class="tags">
2605
2606
2607         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>.
2608
2609
2610       </div>
2611     </div>
2612     <div class="padding"></div>
2613
2614     <div class="entry">
2615       <div class="title">
2616         <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>
2617       </div>
2618       <div class="date">
2619         25th May 2013
2620       </div>
2621       <div class="body">
2622         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
2623 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
2624 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
2625 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
2626 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2627 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
2628
2629 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2630 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
2631 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
2632 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2633 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2634 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
2635 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2636 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2637 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2638 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
2639
2640 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2641 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2642 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
2643 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2644 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2645 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
2646
2647 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2648 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
2649 on new Laptops?</p>
2650
2651       </div>
2652       <div class="tags">
2653
2654
2655         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>.
2656
2657
2658       </div>
2659     </div>
2660     <div class="padding"></div>
2661
2662     <div class="entry">
2663       <div class="title">
2664         <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>
2665       </div>
2666       <div class="date">
2667         17th May 2013
2668       </div>
2669       <div class="body">
2670         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
2671 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
2672 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2673 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
2674 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2675 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2676 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2677 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2678 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
2679 donate some money</a>.
2680
2681 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2682 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2683 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
2684 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2685 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
2686
2687 <p>The script,
2688 <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/>
2689 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2690 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2691 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
2692
2693 <ol>
2694
2695 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
2696 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
2697 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2698     our configuration.</li>
2699 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2700     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2701     according to the profile specified in the config above,
2702     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
2703 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2704     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
2705 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
2706
2707 </ol>
2708
2709 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2710 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2711 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2712 the needed packages.</p>
2713
2714 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2715 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
2716 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2717 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
2718 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2719 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
2720
2721 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2722 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2723 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
2724
2725 <p><pre>
2726 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
2727 DESKTOP="lxde"
2728 </pre></p>
2729
2730 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2731 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2732 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2733 boot.</p>
2734
2735       </div>
2736       <div class="tags">
2737
2738
2739         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>.
2740
2741
2742       </div>
2743     </div>
2744     <div class="padding"></div>
2745
2746     <div class="entry">
2747       <div class="title">
2748         <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>
2749       </div>
2750       <div class="date">
2751         11th May 2013
2752       </div>
2753       <div class="body">
2754         <P>In January,
2755 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
2756 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
2757 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2758 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
2759 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
2760 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
2761 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
2762 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
2763 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2764 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
2765 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
2766 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
2767
2768 <p><table>
2769 <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>
2770 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
2771 <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>
2772 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
2773 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
2774 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
2775 <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>
2776 <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>
2777 <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>
2778 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
2779 </table></p>
2780
2781 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2782 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
2783 available in experimental.</p>
2784
2785 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2786 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2787 for LEGO designers.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</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/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>
2803       </div>
2804       <div class="date">
2805          5th May 2013
2806       </div>
2807       <div class="body">
2808         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2809 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
2810 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
2811 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2812 soon.</p>
2813
2814 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2815 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
2816 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
2817 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
2818 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
2819 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
2820 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
2821 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2822 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2823 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2824 Edu.</a>
2825
2826 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2827 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
2828 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
2829 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
2830 follow.<p>
2831
2832       </div>
2833       <div class="tags">
2834
2835
2836         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>.
2837
2838
2839       </div>
2840     </div>
2841     <div class="padding"></div>
2842
2843     <div class="entry">
2844       <div class="title">
2845         <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>
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="date">
2848          3rd April 2013
2849       </div>
2850       <div class="body">
2851         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
2852 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
2853 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
2854 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
2855
2856 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
2857 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
2858 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
2859 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
2860 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
2861 BTS. :)</p>
2862
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="tags">
2865
2866
2867         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>.
2868
2869
2870       </div>
2871     </div>
2872     <div class="padding"></div>
2873
2874     <div class="entry">
2875       <div class="title">
2876         <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>
2877       </div>
2878       <div class="date">
2879          2nd February 2013
2880       </div>
2881       <div class="body">
2882         <p>My
2883 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
2884 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
2885 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
2886 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
2887 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
2888 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
2889 version too.</p>
2890
2891 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
2892 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
2893 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
2894 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
2895 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
2896 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
2897 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
2898 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
2899
2900 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
2901 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
2902 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
2903 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
2904 it. :)</p>
2905
2906 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2907 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2908 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2909
2910       </div>
2911       <div class="tags">
2912
2913
2914         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>.
2915
2916
2917       </div>
2918     </div>
2919     <div class="padding"></div>
2920
2921     <div class="entry">
2922       <div class="title">
2923         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
2924       </div>
2925       <div class="date">
2926         22nd January 2013
2927       </div>
2928       <div class="body">
2929         <p>Yesterday, I
2930 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
2931 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
2932 pluggable hardware devices, which I
2933 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
2934 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
2935 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
2936 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
2937 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
2938 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
2939 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
2940 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
2941 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
2942 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
2943
2944 <pre>
2945 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
2946 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
2947 </pre>
2948
2949 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
2950 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
2951 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
2952 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
2953
2954 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
2955 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
2956 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
2957 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
2958 word.</p>
2959
2960 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
2961 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
2962 process.</p>
2963
2964 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
2965 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
2966
2967       </div>
2968       <div class="tags">
2969
2970
2971         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>.
2972
2973
2974       </div>
2975     </div>
2976     <div class="padding"></div>
2977
2978     <div class="entry">
2979       <div class="title">
2980         <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>
2981       </div>
2982       <div class="date">
2983         21st January 2013
2984       </div>
2985       <div class="body">
2986         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
2987 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
2988 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
2989 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
2990 it, fetch the
2991 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
2992 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
2993 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
2994 autostart script.</p>
2995
2996 <p>The design is simple:</p>
2997
2998 <ul>
2999
3000 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3001 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3002
3003 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3004 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3005 initially did.</li>
3006
3007 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3008 the APT database, a database
3009 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3010 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3011
3012 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3013 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3014 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3015 package or packages.</li>
3016
3017 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3018 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3019
3020 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3021 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3022
3023 </ul>
3024
3025 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3026 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3027 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3028 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3029
3030 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3031 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3032 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3033 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3034 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3035
3036 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3037 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3038 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3039 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3040 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3041 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3042 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3043 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3044
3045 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3046 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3047 '<tt>svn checkout
3048 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3049 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3050 devscripts package.</p>
3051
3052 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3053 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3054 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3055 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3056 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3057
3058       </div>
3059       <div class="tags">
3060
3061
3062         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>.
3063
3064
3065       </div>
3066     </div>
3067     <div class="padding"></div>
3068
3069     <div class="entry">
3070       <div class="title">
3071         <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>
3072       </div>
3073       <div class="date">
3074         19th January 2013
3075       </div>
3076       <div class="body">
3077         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3078 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3079 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3080 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3081 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3082 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3083 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3084 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3085 not a durable solution.
3086
3087 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3088 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3089
3090 <ul>
3091
3092 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3093   than A4).</li>
3094 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3095 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3096 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3097 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3098 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3099 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3100 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3101 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3102 size).</li>
3103 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3104   X.org packages.</li>
3105 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3106   the time).
3107
3108 </ul>
3109
3110 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3111 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3112 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3113 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3114 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3115 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3116 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3117 still be useful.</p>
3118
3119 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3120 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3121 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3122 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3123 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3124 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3125
3126       </div>
3127       <div class="tags">
3128
3129
3130         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>.
3131
3132
3133       </div>
3134     </div>
3135     <div class="padding"></div>
3136
3137     <div class="entry">
3138       <div class="title">
3139         <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>
3140       </div>
3141       <div class="date">
3142         18th January 2013
3143       </div>
3144       <div class="body">
3145         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3146 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3147 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3148 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3149 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3150 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3151 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3152
3153 <pre>
3154 #!/usr/bin/python
3155 import sys
3156 import apt
3157 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3158     cache = apt.Cache()
3159     cache.open(None)
3160     thepkgs = []
3161     for pkg in cache:
3162         version = pkg.candidate
3163         if version is None:
3164             version = pkg.installed
3165         if version is None:
3166             continue
3167         record = version.record
3168         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3169             continue
3170         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3171         for t in mime_types:
3172             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3173             if t == mimetype:
3174                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3175     return thepkgs
3176 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3177 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3178     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3179 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3180 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3181     print "  %s" %pkg
3182 </pre>
3183
3184 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3185
3186 <pre>
3187 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3188 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3189   gecko-mediaplayer
3190 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3191 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3192   browser-plugin-gnash
3193 %
3194 </pre>
3195
3196 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3197 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3198 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3199 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3200
3201 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3202 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3203 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3204 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3205 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3206 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3207
3208       </div>
3209       <div class="tags">
3210
3211
3212         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>.
3213
3214
3215       </div>
3216     </div>
3217     <div class="padding"></div>
3218
3219     <div class="entry">
3220       <div class="title">
3221         <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>
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="date">
3224         16th January 2013
3225       </div>
3226       <div class="body">
3227         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3228 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3229 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3230 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3231 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3232 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3233 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3234 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3235
3236 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3237 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3238 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3239 can be found on the
3240 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3241 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3242 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3243 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3244 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3245
3246 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3247
3248 <pre>
3249   count MIME type
3250   ----- -----------------------
3251      32 text/plain
3252      30 audio/mpeg
3253      29 image/png
3254      28 image/jpeg
3255      27 application/ogg
3256      26 audio/x-mp3
3257      25 image/tiff
3258      25 image/gif
3259      22 image/bmp
3260      22 audio/x-wav
3261      20 audio/x-flac
3262      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3263      18 video/x-ms-asf
3264      18 audio/x-musepack
3265      18 audio/x-mpeg
3266      18 application/x-ogg
3267      17 video/mpeg
3268      17 audio/x-scpls
3269      17 audio/ogg
3270      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3271 </pre>
3272
3273 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3274
3275 <pre>
3276   count MIME type
3277   ----- -----------------------
3278      33 text/plain
3279      32 image/png
3280      32 image/jpeg
3281      29 audio/mpeg
3282      27 image/gif
3283      26 image/tiff
3284      26 application/ogg
3285      25 audio/x-mp3
3286      22 image/bmp
3287      21 audio/x-wav
3288      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3289      19 audio/x-mpeg
3290      18 video/mpeg
3291      18 audio/x-scpls
3292      18 audio/x-flac
3293      18 application/x-ogg
3294      17 video/x-ms-asf
3295      17 text/html
3296      17 audio/x-musepack
3297      16 image/x-xbitmap
3298 </pre>
3299
3300 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3301
3302 <pre>
3303   count MIME type
3304   ----- -----------------------
3305      31 text/plain
3306      31 image/png
3307      31 image/jpeg
3308      29 audio/mpeg
3309      28 application/ogg
3310      27 image/gif
3311      26 image/tiff
3312      26 audio/x-mp3
3313      23 audio/x-wav
3314      22 image/bmp
3315      21 audio/x-flac
3316      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3317      19 audio/x-mpeg
3318      18 video/x-ms-asf
3319      18 video/mpeg
3320      18 audio/x-scpls
3321      18 application/x-ogg
3322      17 audio/x-musepack
3323      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3324      16 video/x-msvideo
3325 </pre>
3326
3327 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3328 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3329 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3330 issues.</p>
3331
3332 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3333 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3334
3335       </div>
3336       <div class="tags">
3337
3338
3339         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>.
3340
3341
3342       </div>
3343     </div>
3344     <div class="padding"></div>
3345
3346     <div class="entry">
3347       <div class="title">
3348         <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>
3349       </div>
3350       <div class="date">
3351         15th January 2013
3352       </div>
3353       <div class="body">
3354         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3355 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3356 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3357 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3358 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3359 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3360 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3361 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3362 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3363 packages.</p>
3364
3365 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3366 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3367 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3368 modalias.</p>
3369
3370 <p><blockquote>
3371 Package: package-name
3372 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3373 </blockquote></p>
3374
3375 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3376 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3377
3378 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3379 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3380
3381 <p><blockquote>
3382 Package: cheese
3383 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3384 </blockquote></p>
3385
3386 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3387 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3388
3389 <p><blockquote>
3390 Package: pcmciautils
3391 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3392 </blockquote></p>
3393
3394 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3395 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3396
3397 <p><blockquote>
3398 Package: colorhug-client
3399 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3400 </blockquote></p>
3401
3402 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3403 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3404 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3405
3406 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3407 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3408 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3409 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3410 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3411 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3412 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3413 Raring.</p>
3414
3415 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3416 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3417 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3418 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3419 try the
3420 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3421 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3422 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3423 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3424
3425 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3426 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3427
3428 <p><blockquote>
3429 % ./hw-support-lookup
3430 <br>yubikey-personalization
3431 <br>%
3432 </blockquote></p>
3433
3434 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3435 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
3436
3437 <p><blockquote>
3438 % ./hw-support-lookup
3439 <br>pcmciautils
3440 <br>%
3441 </blockquote></p>
3442
3443 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3444 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
3445 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
3446
3447 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3448 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
3449 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3450 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
3451 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3452 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3453 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
3454 see if it work.</p>
3455
3456 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3457 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3458 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3459 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3460
3461       </div>
3462       <div class="tags">
3463
3464
3465         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>.
3466
3467
3468       </div>
3469     </div>
3470     <div class="padding"></div>
3471
3472     <div class="entry">
3473       <div class="title">
3474         <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>
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="date">
3477         14th January 2013
3478       </div>
3479       <div class="body">
3480         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3481 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3482 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3483 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
3484 in
3485 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3486 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
3487
3488 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
3489
3490 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3491 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
3492 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
3493 &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;,
3494 &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
3495 &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;.
3496
3497 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3498 this shell script:</p>
3499
3500 <pre>
3501 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3502 </pre>
3503
3504 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3505 using modinfo:</p>
3506
3507 <pre>
3508 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3509 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3510 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3511 %
3512 </pre>
3513
3514 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
3515
3516 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
3517 Bridge memory controller:</p>
3518
3519 <p><blockquote>
3520 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3521 </blockquote></p>
3522
3523 <p>This represent these values:</p>
3524
3525 <pre>
3526  v   00008086  (vendor)
3527  d   00002770  (device)
3528  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
3529  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
3530  bc  06        (bus class)
3531  sc  00        (bus subclass)
3532  i   00        (interface)
3533 </pre>
3534
3535 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
3536 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3537 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
3538 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
3539
3540 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3541 means.</p>
3542
3543 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
3544
3545 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
3546 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
3547
3548 <p><blockquote>
3549 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3550 </blockquote></p>
3551
3552 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
3553
3554 <pre>
3555  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
3556  p    0001  (device product)
3557  d    0206  (bcddevice)
3558  dc     09  (device class)
3559  dsc    00  (device subclass)
3560  dp     00  (device protocol)
3561  ic     09  (interface class)
3562  isc    00  (interface subclass)
3563  ip     00  (interface protocol)
3564 </pre>
3565
3566 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
3567 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
3568 these alias entries show up:</p>
3569
3570 <p><blockquote>
3571 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3572 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3573 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3574 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3575 </blockquote></p>
3576
3577 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
3578 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
3579 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
3580
3581 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
3582
3583 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
3584 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
3585
3586 <p><blockquote>
3587 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3588 </blockquote></p>
3589
3590 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
3591
3592 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
3593
3594 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3595 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3596 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
3597
3598 <p><blockquote>
3599 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
3600 </blockquote></p>
3601
3602 <p>The values present are</p>
3603
3604 <pre>
3605  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
3606  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
3607  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
3608  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
3609  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
3610  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
3611  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
3612  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
3613  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
3614  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
3615  ct   10             (chassis type)
3616  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
3617 </pre>
3618
3619 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
3620 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
3621
3622 <pre>
3623   3 Desktop
3624   4 Low Profile Desktop
3625   5 Pizza Box
3626   6 Mini Tower
3627   7 Tower
3628   8 Portable
3629   9 Laptop
3630  10 Notebook
3631  11 Hand Held
3632  12 Docking Station
3633  13 All In One
3634  14 Sub Notebook
3635  15 Space-saving
3636  16 Lunch Box
3637  17 Main Server Chassis
3638  18 Expansion Chassis
3639  19 Sub Chassis
3640  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
3641  21 Peripheral Chassis
3642  22 RAID Chassis
3643  23 Rack Mount Chassis
3644  24 Sealed-case PC
3645  25 Multi-system
3646  26 CompactPCI
3647  27 AdvancedTCA
3648  28 Blade
3649  29 Blade Enclosing
3650 </pre>
3651
3652 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
3653 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
3654 claim it is a desktop.</p>
3655
3656 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
3657
3658 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
3659 test machine:</p>
3660
3661 <p><blockquote>
3662 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
3663 </blockquote></p>
3664
3665 <p>The values present are</p>
3666
3667 <pre>
3668   ty  01  (type)
3669   pr  00  (prototype)
3670   id  00  (id)
3671   ex  00  (extra)
3672 </pre>
3673
3674 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
3675 the valid values are.</p>
3676
3677 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
3678
3679 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
3680 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
3681 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
3682 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
3683 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
3684 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
3685 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
3686
3687 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
3688
3689 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
3690 one can use the following shell script:</p>
3691
3692 <pre>
3693   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
3694     echo "$id" ; \
3695     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
3696   done
3697 </pre>
3698
3699 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
3700 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
3701
3702 <pre>
3703   acpi:ACPI0003:
3704     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
3705   acpi:device:
3706   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
3707   acpi:IBM0068:
3708     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
3709     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
3710     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
3711     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
3712   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3713     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
3714     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
3715     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
3716   [...]
3717 </pre>
3718
3719 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3720 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3721 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3722 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3723
3724 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
3725 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
3726 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
3727
3728       </div>
3729       <div class="tags">
3730
3731
3732         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>.
3733
3734
3735       </div>
3736     </div>
3737     <div class="padding"></div>
3738
3739     <div class="entry">
3740       <div class="title">
3741         <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>
3742       </div>
3743       <div class="date">
3744         10th January 2013
3745       </div>
3746       <div class="body">
3747         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
3748 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
3749 Launcher and updated the Debian package
3750 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
3751 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
3752 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
3753 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
3754 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
3755 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
3756 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
3757 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
3758 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
3759 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
3760 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
3761 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
3762 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
3763 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
3764 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
3765
3766       </div>
3767       <div class="tags">
3768
3769
3770         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
3771
3772
3773       </div>
3774     </div>
3775     <div class="padding"></div>
3776
3777     <div class="entry">
3778       <div class="title">
3779         <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>
3780       </div>
3781       <div class="date">
3782          9th January 2013
3783       </div>
3784       <div class="body">
3785         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
3786 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
3787 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
3788 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
3789 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
3790 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
3791 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
3792 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
3793 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
3794 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
3795 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
3796
3797 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
3798 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
3799 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
3800 simple:
3801
3802 <ul>
3803
3804 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
3805   starting when a user log in.</li>
3806
3807 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
3808   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
3809
3810 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
3811   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
3812   packages.</li>
3813
3814 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
3815   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
3816
3817 </ul>
3818
3819 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
3820 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
3821 discover database to find packages and
3822 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
3823 packages.</p>
3824
3825 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
3826 draft package is now checked into
3827 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3828 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
3829 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
3830 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
3831 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
3832 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
3833 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
3834 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
3835 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
3836 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
3837 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
3838 because of the freeze).</p>
3839
3840 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
3841 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
3842 inserted):</p>
3843
3844 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
3845
3846 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
3847 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
3848 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
3849
3850 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
3851 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
3852 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
3853 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
3854 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
3855 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
3856 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
3857
3858 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
3859 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
3860 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
3861 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
3862 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
3863 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
3864 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
3865 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
3866 not be installed?</p>
3867
3868 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
3869 please send me an email. :)</p>
3870
3871       </div>
3872       <div class="tags">
3873
3874
3875         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>.
3876
3877
3878       </div>
3879     </div>
3880     <div class="padding"></div>
3881
3882     <div class="entry">
3883       <div class="title">
3884         <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>
3885       </div>
3886       <div class="date">
3887          2nd January 2013
3888       </div>
3889       <div class="body">
3890         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
3891 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
3892 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
3893 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
3894 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
3895 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
3896 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
3897 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
3898 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
3899 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
3900
3901 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
3902 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
3903 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
3904
3905       </div>
3906       <div class="tags">
3907
3908
3909         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>.
3910
3911
3912       </div>
3913     </div>
3914     <div class="padding"></div>
3915
3916     <div class="entry">
3917       <div class="title">
3918         <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>
3919       </div>
3920       <div class="date">
3921         25th December 2012
3922       </div>
3923       <div class="body">
3924         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
3925 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
3926
3927 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
3928 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
3929 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
3930 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
3931 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
3932 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
3933 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
3934 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
3935 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
3936 name.</p>
3937
3938 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
3939 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
3940 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
3941
3942 <blockquote><pre>
3943 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
3944 cd bitcoin
3945 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3946 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3947 </pre></blockquote>
3948
3949 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
3950 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3951 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
3952 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
3953 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
3954 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3955 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3956 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3957 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
3958
3959 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3960 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3961 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3962
3963       </div>
3964       <div class="tags">
3965
3966
3967         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>.
3968
3969
3970       </div>
3971     </div>
3972     <div class="padding"></div>
3973
3974     <div class="entry">
3975       <div class="title">
3976         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
3977       </div>
3978       <div class="date">
3979         21st December 2012
3980       </div>
3981       <div class="body">
3982         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
3983 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
3984 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3985 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
3986 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
3987 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
3988 is now maintained by a
3989 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
3990 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
3991 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3992 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3993 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3994 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3995 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
3996 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3997 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3998 Corallo in a
3999 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4000 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4001 Debian package.</p>
4002
4003 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4004 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4005 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4006 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4007 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4008 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4009 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4010 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4011 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4012 new version to unstable.
4013
4014 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4015 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4016 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4017 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4018 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4019 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4020 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4021 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4022 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4023 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4024 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4025 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4026 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4027 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4028 have not tested them.</p>
4029
4030 <p>My
4031 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4032 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4033 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4034 years ago, as can be
4035 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4036 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4037 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4038 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4039 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4040 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4041 the same address as last time,
4042 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4043
4044       </div>
4045       <div class="tags">
4046
4047
4048         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>.
4049
4050
4051       </div>
4052     </div>
4053     <div class="padding"></div>
4054
4055     <div class="entry">
4056       <div class="title">
4057         <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>
4058       </div>
4059       <div class="date">
4060          7th September 2012
4061       </div>
4062       <div class="body">
4063         <p>As I
4064 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4065 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4066 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4067 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4068 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4069
4070 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4071 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4072 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4073 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4074
4075 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4076 PostScript formats at
4077 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4078 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4079
4080       </div>
4081       <div class="tags">
4082
4083
4084         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4085
4086
4087       </div>
4088     </div>
4089     <div class="padding"></div>
4090
4091     <div class="entry">
4092       <div class="title">
4093         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4094       </div>
4095       <div class="date">
4096         16th August 2012
4097       </div>
4098       <div class="body">
4099         <p>I dag fyller
4100 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4101 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4102 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4103
4104       </div>
4105       <div class="tags">
4106
4107
4108         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>.
4109
4110
4111       </div>
4112     </div>
4113     <div class="padding"></div>
4114
4115     <div class="entry">
4116       <div class="title">
4117         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4118       </div>
4119       <div class="date">
4120         24th June 2012
4121       </div>
4122       <div class="body">
4123         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4124 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4125 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4126 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4127 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4128 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4129 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4130 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4131 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4132 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4133 missing in my book.</p>
4134
4135 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4136 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4137 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4138 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4139 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4140 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4141 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4142
4143       </div>
4144       <div class="tags">
4145
4146
4147         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>.
4148
4149
4150       </div>
4151     </div>
4152     <div class="padding"></div>
4153
4154     <div class="entry">
4155       <div class="title">
4156         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4157       </div>
4158       <div class="date">
4159         21st November 2011
4160       </div>
4161       <div class="body">
4162         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4163 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4164 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4165 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4166 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4167 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4168 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4169 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4170 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4171 the tools to do so.</p>
4172
4173 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4174 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4175 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4176 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4177
4178 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4179 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4180 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4181 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4182 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4183 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4184 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4185 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4186
4187 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4188 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4189 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4190
4191 <p><pre>
4192 #!/usr/bin/perl
4193 use strict;
4194 use warnings;
4195 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4196 BEGIN {
4197     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4198     my %rhelmodules = (
4199         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4200         );
4201     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4202         eval "use $module;";
4203         if ($@) {
4204             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4205             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4206             eval "use $module;";
4207         }
4208     }
4209 }
4210 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4211
4212 upgrade_dell();
4213
4214 exit 0;
4215
4216 sub run_firmware_script {
4217     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4218     unless ($script) {
4219         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4220         exit 1
4221     }
4222     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4223
4224     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4225         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4226     } else {
4227         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4228     }
4229 }
4230
4231 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4232     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4233     # Run firmware packages
4234     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4235         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4236         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4237         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4238             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4239             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4240         }
4241         closedir $dh;
4242     }
4243 }
4244
4245 sub download {
4246     my $url = shift;
4247     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4248     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4249 }
4250
4251 sub upgrade_dell {
4252     my @dirs;
4253     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4254     chomp $product;
4255
4256     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4257
4258         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4259         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4260
4261         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4262             CLEANUP => 1
4263             );
4264         chdir($tmpdir);
4265         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4266         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4267         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4268         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4269         my $fwopts = "-q";
4270         if (@paths) {
4271             for my $url (@paths) {
4272                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4273             }
4274             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4275         } else {
4276             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4277             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4278         }
4279         chdir('/');
4280     } else {
4281         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4282         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4283     }
4284 }
4285
4286 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4287     my $path = shift;
4288     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4289     download($url);
4290 }
4291
4292 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4293 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4294 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4295 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4296     my $filename = shift;
4297
4298     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4299     chomp $product;
4300     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4301
4302     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4303
4304     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4305     my @paths;
4306     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4307         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4308         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4309         my $oscode;
4310         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4311             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4312         } else {
4313             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4314         }
4315         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4316         {
4317             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4318         }
4319     }
4320     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4321         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4322
4323         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4324         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4325
4326         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4327         for my $path (@paths) {
4328             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4329                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4330             }
4331         }
4332     }
4333     return @paths;
4334 }
4335 </pre>
4336
4337 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4338 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4339 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4340 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4341 outdated.</p>
4342
4343       </div>
4344       <div class="tags">
4345
4346
4347         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>.
4348
4349
4350       </div>
4351     </div>
4352     <div class="padding"></div>
4353
4354     <div class="entry">
4355       <div class="title">
4356         <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>
4357       </div>
4358       <div class="date">
4359          4th August 2011
4360       </div>
4361       <div class="body">
4362         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4363 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4364 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4365 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4366 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4367 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4368 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4369 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4370 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4371
4372 <p><blockquote>
4373 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4374 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4375 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4376 </blockquote></p>
4377
4378 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4379 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4380 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4381 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4382 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4383 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4384 hard to explain.</p>
4385
4386 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4387 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4388 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4389 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4390 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4391 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4392 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4393 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4394 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4395 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4396 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4397 mode).</p>
4398
4399 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4400 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4401 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4402 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4403 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4404 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4405 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4406 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4407 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4408
4409 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4410 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4411 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4412 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4413 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4414 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4415 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4416 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4417
4418 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4419 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4420 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4421
4422       </div>
4423       <div class="tags">
4424
4425
4426         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>.
4427
4428
4429       </div>
4430     </div>
4431     <div class="padding"></div>
4432
4433     <div class="entry">
4434       <div class="title">
4435         <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>
4436       </div>
4437       <div class="date">
4438         30th July 2011
4439       </div>
4440       <div class="body">
4441         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4442 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4443 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4444 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4445 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4446 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4447 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4448 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4449 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4450 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4451 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4452 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4453 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4454
4455 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4456 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4457 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4458 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4459 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4460 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4461 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4462 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4463 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4464
4465 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4466 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4467 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4468 is presented.</p>
4469
4470 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4471 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4472 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4473 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4474 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4475 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4476 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4477 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4478 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4479 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4480 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4481 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4482 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4483 find time to push this forward.</p>
4484
4485       </div>
4486       <div class="tags">
4487
4488
4489         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>.
4490
4491
4492       </div>
4493     </div>
4494     <div class="padding"></div>
4495
4496     <div class="entry">
4497       <div class="title">
4498         <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>
4499       </div>
4500       <div class="date">
4501         29th July 2011
4502       </div>
4503       <div class="body">
4504         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4505 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4506 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
4507 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4508 issues.</p>
4509
4510 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4511 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4512 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
4513
4514 <ol>
4515
4516 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
4517 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4518 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4519 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4520 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
4521 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
4522 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4523 Debian.</li>
4524
4525 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4526 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4527 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4528 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4529 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4530 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4531 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
4532 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4533 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4534 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
4535 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4536 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4537 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
4538
4539 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4540 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4541 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4542 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
4543 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
4544 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4545 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
4546 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4547 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4548 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4549
4550 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4551 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4552 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4553 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4554 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4555 latter behaviour.</li>
4556
4557 </ol>
4558
4559 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4560 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4561 it do not matter much.</p>
4562
4563 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4564 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4565 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4566
4567       </div>
4568       <div class="tags">
4569
4570
4571         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>.
4572
4573
4574       </div>
4575     </div>
4576     <div class="padding"></div>
4577
4578     <div class="entry">
4579       <div class="title">
4580         <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>
4581       </div>
4582       <div class="date">
4583         26th July 2011
4584       </div>
4585       <div class="body">
4586         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4587 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4588 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4589 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4590 security support for a few years.</p>
4591
4592 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4593 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4594 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4595 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4596 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4597 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4598 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4599 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4600 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4601 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4602 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4603 easier in the future.</p>
4604
4605 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4606 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
4607 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
4608 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4609 do not have time for.</p>
4610
4611       </div>
4612       <div class="tags">
4613
4614
4615         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>.
4616
4617
4618       </div>
4619     </div>
4620     <div class="padding"></div>
4621
4622     <div class="entry">
4623       <div class="title">
4624         <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>
4625       </div>
4626       <div class="date">
4627          3rd April 2011
4628       </div>
4629       <div class="body">
4630         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
4631 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4632 update in English.</p>
4633
4634 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4635 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4636 of the British service
4637 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
4638 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
4639 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4640 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
4641 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
4642 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
4643 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4644 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4645 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
4646 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
4647 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
4648 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4649 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
4650
4651 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4652 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
4653 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4654 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
4655 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4656 public infrastructure.</p>
4657
4658 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4659 such service?</p>
4660
4661       </div>
4662       <div class="tags">
4663
4664
4665         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>.
4666
4667
4668       </div>
4669     </div>
4670     <div class="padding"></div>
4671
4672     <div class="entry">
4673       <div class="title">
4674         <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>
4675       </div>
4676       <div class="date">
4677         28th January 2011
4678       </div>
4679       <div class="body">
4680         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4681 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
4682 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4683 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4684 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
4685 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
4686 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4687 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4688 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4689 out which security holes were present in our free software
4690 collection.</p>
4691
4692 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4693 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4694 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
4695 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4696 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4697 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
4698 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4699 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
4700 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4701 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
4702 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
4703 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
4704 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
4705 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4706 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
4707 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
4708
4709 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4710 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
4711 check out, one could look up
4712 <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
4713 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4714 The most recent one is
4715 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
4716 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4717 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
4718
4719 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4720 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
4721 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4722 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
4723 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4724 security issues out.</p>
4725
4726 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4727 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
4728 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
4729 RHEL is providing
4730 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
4731 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4732 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
4733
4734 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4735 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4736 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
4737 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4738 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4739 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
4740 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4741 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
4742 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4743 established soon.</p>
4744
4745 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4746 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4747 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4748 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4749 for their packages.</p>
4750
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="tags">
4753
4754
4755         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>.
4756
4757
4758       </div>
4759     </div>
4760     <div class="padding"></div>
4761
4762     <div class="entry">
4763       <div class="title">
4764         <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>
4765       </div>
4766       <div class="date">
4767         23rd January 2011
4768       </div>
4769       <div class="body">
4770         <p>In the
4771 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
4772 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4773 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4774 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
4775 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4776 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4777 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
4778 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4779 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
4780 one of my machines like this:</p>
4781
4782 <pre>
4783 loaded modules:
4784 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
4785 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
4786 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
4787 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
4788 10de:03ec pata_amd
4789 10de:03f6 sata_nv
4790 1022:1103 k8temp
4791 109e:036e bttv
4792 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
4793 11ab:4364 sky2
4794 </pre>
4795
4796 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4797 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
4798
4799 <pre>
4800 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4801     echo loaded pci modules:
4802     (
4803         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4804         for address in * ; do
4805             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4806                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4807                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4808                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4809                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
4810                     echo "$id $module"
4811                 fi
4812             fi
4813         done
4814     )
4815     echo
4816 fi
4817 </pre>
4818
4819 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4820 mappings:</p>
4821
4822 <pre>
4823 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4824     echo loaded usb modules:
4825     (
4826         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4827         for address in * ; do
4828             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4829                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4830                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4831                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4832                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
4833                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
4834                         echo "$id $module"
4835                     fi
4836                 fi
4837             fi
4838         done
4839     )
4840     echo
4841 fi
4842 </pre>
4843
4844 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4845 well.</p>
4846
4847       </div>
4848       <div class="tags">
4849
4850
4851         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>.
4852
4853
4854       </div>
4855     </div>
4856     <div class="padding"></div>
4857
4858     <div class="entry">
4859       <div class="title">
4860         <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>
4861       </div>
4862       <div class="date">
4863         22nd December 2010
4864       </div>
4865       <div class="body">
4866         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
4867 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
4868 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
4869 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
4870 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
4871 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
4872 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
4873 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
4874 university.</p>
4875
4876 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
4877 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
4878 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
4879 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
4880 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
4881 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
4882 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
4883 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
4884
4885 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
4886 I perform on a new model.</p>
4887
4888 <ul>
4889
4890 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
4891 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
4892 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
4893
4894 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
4895 installation, X.org is working.</li>
4896
4897 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
4898 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
4899 reported by the program.</li>
4900
4901 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
4902 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
4903 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
4904 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
4905 normally test this by playing
4906 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
4907 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
4908
4909 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
4910 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
4911
4912 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
4913 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
4914
4915 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
4916 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
4917
4918 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
4919 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
4920 few.</li>
4921
4922 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
4923 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
4924 notice this.</li>
4925
4926 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
4927 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
4928 resume.</li>
4929
4930 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
4931 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
4932 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
4933 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
4934 not.</li>
4935
4936 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
4937 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
4938 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
4939 existence.</li>
4940
4941 </ul>
4942
4943 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
4944 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
4945 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
4946 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
4947 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
4948 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
4949 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
4950 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
4951
4952       </div>
4953       <div class="tags">
4954
4955
4956         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>.
4957
4958
4959       </div>
4960     </div>
4961     <div class="padding"></div>
4962
4963     <div class="entry">
4964       <div class="title">
4965         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
4966       </div>
4967       <div class="date">
4968         11th December 2010
4969       </div>
4970       <div class="body">
4971         <p>As I continue to explore
4972 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
4973 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
4974 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
4975
4976 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
4977 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
4978 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
4979 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
4980 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
4981 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
4982 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
4983 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
4984 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
4985 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
4986 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
4987 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
4988 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
4989 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
4990 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
4991 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
4992 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
4993 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
4994 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
4995 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
4996
4997 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
4998 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
4999 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5000 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5001 If the Skolelinux foundation
5002 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5003 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5004 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5005 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5006 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5007 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5008 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5009 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5010
5011 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5012 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5013 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5014 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5015 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5016 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5017 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5018 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5019 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5020 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5021 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5022 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5023 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5024 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5025 currencies.</p>
5026
5027 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5028 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5029 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5030 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5031 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5032 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5033 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5034 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5035 BitCoins.  Check out
5036 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5037 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5038 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5039 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5040 yet.</p>
5041
5042 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5043 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5044 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5045 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5046 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5047
5048       </div>
5049       <div class="tags">
5050
5051
5052         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>.
5053
5054
5055       </div>
5056     </div>
5057     <div class="padding"></div>
5058
5059     <div class="entry">
5060       <div class="title">
5061         <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>
5062       </div>
5063       <div class="date">
5064         10th December 2010
5065       </div>
5066       <div class="body">
5067         <p>With this weeks lawless
5068 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5069 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5070 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5071 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5072 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5073 A blog post from
5074 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5075 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5076 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5077 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5078 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5079 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5080 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5081
5082 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5083 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5084 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5085 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5086 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5087 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5088 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5089 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5090 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5091 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5092
5093 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5094 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5095 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5096 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5097 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5098 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5099 you can even get
5100 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5101 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5102 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5103 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5104
5105 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5106 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5107 donations to the address
5108 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5109
5110       </div>
5111       <div class="tags">
5112
5113
5114         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>.
5115
5116
5117       </div>
5118     </div>
5119     <div class="padding"></div>
5120
5121     <div class="entry">
5122       <div class="title">
5123         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5124       </div>
5125       <div class="date">
5126         27th November 2010
5127       </div>
5128       <div class="body">
5129         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5130 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5131 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5132 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5133 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5134 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5135 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5136 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5137
5138 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5139 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5140 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5141 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5142 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5143 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5144 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5145 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5146 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5147 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5148 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5149
5150 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5151 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5152 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5153 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5154 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5155 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5156 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5157 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5158 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5159 what is going on.</p>
5160
5161       </div>
5162       <div class="tags">
5163
5164
5165         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>.
5166
5167
5168       </div>
5169     </div>
5170     <div class="padding"></div>
5171
5172     <div class="entry">
5173       <div class="title">
5174         <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>
5175       </div>
5176       <div class="date">
5177         22nd November 2010
5178       </div>
5179       <div class="body">
5180         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5181 upgrade testing of the
5182 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5183 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5184 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5185 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5186
5187 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5188
5189 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5190
5191 <blockquote><p>
5192   apache2.2-bin
5193   aptdaemon
5194   baobab
5195   binfmt-support
5196   browser-plugin-gnash
5197   cheese-common
5198   cli-common
5199   cups-pk-helper
5200   dmz-cursor-theme
5201   empathy
5202   empathy-common
5203   freedesktop-sound-theme
5204   freeglut3
5205   gconf-defaults-service
5206   gdm-themes
5207   gedit-plugins
5208   geoclue
5209   geoclue-hostip
5210   geoclue-localnet
5211   geoclue-manual
5212   geoclue-yahoo
5213   gnash
5214   gnash-common
5215   gnome
5216   gnome-backgrounds
5217   gnome-cards-data
5218   gnome-codec-install
5219   gnome-core
5220   gnome-desktop-environment
5221   gnome-disk-utility
5222   gnome-screenshot
5223   gnome-search-tool
5224   gnome-session-canberra
5225   gnome-system-log
5226   gnome-themes-extras
5227   gnome-themes-more
5228   gnome-user-share
5229   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5230   gstreamer0.10-tools
5231   gtk2-engines
5232   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5233   gtk2-engines-smooth
5234   hamster-applet
5235   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5236   libapr1
5237   libaprutil1
5238   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5239   libaprutil1-ldap
5240   libart2.0-cil
5241   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5242   libboost-python1.42.0
5243   libboost-thread1.42.0
5244   libchamplain-0.4-0
5245   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5246   libcheese-gtk18
5247   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5248   libcryptui0
5249   libdiscid0
5250   libelf1
5251   libepc-1.0-2
5252   libepc-common
5253   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5254   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5255   libfreerdp0
5256   libgconf2.0-cil
5257   libgdata-common
5258   libgdata7
5259   libgdu-gtk0
5260   libgee2
5261   libgeoclue0
5262   libgexiv2-0
5263   libgif4
5264   libglade2.0-cil
5265   libglib2.0-cil
5266   libgmime2.4-cil
5267   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5268   libgnome2.24-cil
5269   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5270   libgpod-common
5271   libgpod4
5272   libgtk2.0-cil
5273   libgtkglext1
5274   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5275   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5276   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5277   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5278   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5279   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5280   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5281   libmono-security2.0-cil
5282   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5283   libmono-system2.0-cil
5284   libmtp8
5285   libmusicbrainz3-6
5286   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5287   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5288   libopal3.6.8
5289   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5290   libpt2.6.7
5291   libpython2.6
5292   librpm1
5293   librpmio1
5294   libsdl1.2debian
5295   libsrtp0
5296   libssh-4
5297   libtelepathy-farsight0
5298   libtelepathy-glib0
5299   libtidy-0.99-0
5300   media-player-info
5301   mesa-utils
5302   mono-2.0-gac
5303   mono-gac
5304   mono-runtime
5305   nautilus-sendto
5306   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5307   p7zip-full
5308   pkg-config
5309   python-aptdaemon
5310   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5311   python-axiom
5312   python-beautifulsoup
5313   python-bugbuddy
5314   python-clientform
5315   python-coherence
5316   python-configobj
5317   python-crypto
5318   python-cupshelpers
5319   python-elementtree
5320   python-epsilon
5321   python-evolution
5322   python-feedparser
5323   python-gdata
5324   python-gdbm
5325   python-gst0.10
5326   python-gtkglext1
5327   python-gtksourceview2
5328   python-httplib2
5329   python-louie
5330   python-mako
5331   python-markupsafe
5332   python-mechanize
5333   python-nevow
5334   python-notify
5335   python-opengl
5336   python-openssl
5337   python-pam
5338   python-pkg-resources
5339   python-pyasn1
5340   python-pysqlite2
5341   python-rdflib
5342   python-serial
5343   python-tagpy
5344   python-twisted-bin
5345   python-twisted-conch
5346   python-twisted-core
5347   python-twisted-web
5348   python-utidylib
5349   python-webkit
5350   python-xdg
5351   python-zope.interface
5352   remmina
5353   remmina-plugin-data
5354   remmina-plugin-rdp
5355   remmina-plugin-vnc
5356   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5357   rhythmbox-plugins
5358   rpm-common
5359   rpm2cpio
5360   seahorse-plugins
5361   shotwell
5362   software-center
5363   system-config-printer-udev
5364   telepathy-gabble
5365   telepathy-mission-control-5
5366   telepathy-salut
5367   tomboy
5368   totem
5369   totem-coherence
5370   totem-mozilla
5371   totem-plugins
5372   transmission-common
5373   xdg-user-dirs
5374   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5375   xserver-xephyr
5376 </p></blockquote>
5377
5378 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5379
5380 <blockquote><p>
5381   cheese
5382   ekiga
5383   eog
5384   epiphany-extensions
5385   evolution-exchange
5386   fast-user-switch-applet
5387   file-roller
5388   gcalctool
5389   gconf-editor
5390   gdm
5391   gedit
5392   gedit-common
5393   gnome-games
5394   gnome-games-data
5395   gnome-nettool
5396   gnome-system-tools
5397   gnome-themes
5398   gnuchess
5399   gucharmap
5400   guile-1.8-libs
5401   libavahi-ui0
5402   libdmx1
5403   libgalago3
5404   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5405   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5406   liblircclient0
5407   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5408   libspeexdsp1
5409   libsvga1
5410   rhythmbox
5411   seahorse
5412   sound-juicer
5413   system-config-printer
5414   totem-common
5415   transmission-gtk
5416   vinagre
5417   vino
5418 </p></blockquote>
5419
5420 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5421
5422 <blockquote><p>
5423   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5424 </p></blockquote>
5425
5426 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5427
5428 <blockquote><p>
5429 [nothing]
5430 </p></blockquote>
5431
5432 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5433
5434 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5435
5436 <blockquote><p>
5437   ksmserver
5438 </p></blockquote>
5439
5440 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5441
5442 <blockquote><p>
5443   kwin
5444   network-manager-kde
5445 </p></blockquote>
5446
5447 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5448
5449 <blockquote><p>
5450   arts
5451   dolphin
5452   freespacenotifier
5453   google-gadgets-gst
5454   google-gadgets-xul
5455   kappfinder
5456   kcalc
5457   kcharselect
5458   kde-core
5459   kde-plasma-desktop
5460   kde-standard
5461   kde-window-manager
5462   kdeartwork
5463   kdeartwork-emoticons
5464   kdeartwork-style
5465   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5466   kdebase
5467   kdebase-apps
5468   kdebase-workspace
5469   kdebase-workspace-bin
5470   kdebase-workspace-data
5471   kdeeject
5472   kdelibs
5473   kdeplasma-addons
5474   kdeutils
5475   kdewallpapers
5476   kdf
5477   kfloppy
5478   kgpg
5479   khelpcenter4
5480   kinfocenter
5481   konq-plugins-l10n
5482   konqueror-nsplugins
5483   kscreensaver
5484   kscreensaver-xsavers
5485   ktimer
5486   kwrite
5487   libgle3
5488   libkde4-ruby1.8
5489   libkonq5
5490   libkonq5-templates
5491   libnetpbm10
5492   libplasma-ruby
5493   libplasma-ruby1.8
5494   libqt4-ruby1.8
5495   marble-data
5496   marble-plugins
5497   netpbm
5498   nuvola-icon-theme
5499   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5500   plasma-desktop
5501   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5502   plasma-runners-addons
5503   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5504   plasma-scriptengine-python
5505   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5506   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5507   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5508   plasma-scriptengines
5509   plasma-wallpapers-addons
5510   plasma-widget-folderview
5511   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5512   ruby
5513   sweeper
5514   update-notifier-kde
5515   xscreensaver-data-extra
5516   xscreensaver-gl
5517   xscreensaver-gl-extra
5518   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5519 </p></blockquote>
5520
5521 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5522
5523 <blockquote><p>
5524   ark
5525   google-gadgets-common
5526   google-gadgets-qt
5527   htdig
5528   kate
5529   kdebase-bin
5530   kdebase-data
5531   kdepasswd
5532   kfind
5533   klipper
5534   konq-plugins
5535   konqueror
5536   ksysguard
5537   ksysguardd
5538   libarchive1
5539   libcln6
5540   libeet1
5541   libeina-svn-06
5542   libggadget-1.0-0b
5543   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5544   libgps19
5545   libkdecorations4
5546   libkephal4
5547   libkonq4
5548   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5549   libkscreensaver5
5550   libksgrd4
5551   libksignalplotter4
5552   libkunitconversion4
5553   libkwineffects1a
5554   libmarblewidget4
5555   libntrack-qt4-1
5556   libntrack0
5557   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5558   libplasmaclock4a
5559   libplasmagenericshell4
5560   libprocesscore4a
5561   libprocessui4a
5562   libqalculate5
5563   libqedje0a
5564   libqtruby4shared2
5565   libqzion0a
5566   libruby1.8
5567   libscim8c2a
5568   libsmokekdecore4-3
5569   libsmokekdeui4-3
5570   libsmokekfile3
5571   libsmokekhtml3
5572   libsmokekio3
5573   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5574   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5575   libsmokekparts3
5576   libsmokektexteditor3
5577   libsmokekutils3
5578   libsmokenepomuk3
5579   libsmokephonon3
5580   libsmokeplasma3
5581   libsmokeqtcore4-3
5582   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5583   libsmokeqtgui4-3
5584   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5585   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5586   libsmokeqtscript4-3
5587   libsmokeqtsql4-3
5588   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5589   libsmokeqttest4-3
5590   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5591   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5592   libsmokeqtxml4-3
5593   libsmokesolid3
5594   libsmokesoprano3
5595   libtaskmanager4a
5596   libtidy-0.99-0
5597   libweather-ion4a
5598   libxklavier16
5599   libxxf86misc1
5600   okteta
5601   oxygencursors
5602   plasma-dataengines-addons
5603   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5604   plasma-widget-lancelot
5605   plasma-widgets-addons
5606   plasma-widgets-workspace
5607   polkit-kde-1
5608   ruby1.8
5609   systemsettings
5610   update-notifier-common
5611 </p></blockquote>
5612
5613 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5614 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5615 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5616 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
5617
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="tags">
5620
5621
5622         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>.
5623
5624
5625       </div>
5626     </div>
5627     <div class="padding"></div>
5628
5629     <div class="entry">
5630       <div class="title">
5631         <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>
5632       </div>
5633       <div class="date">
5634         22nd November 2010
5635       </div>
5636       <div class="body">
5637         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
5638 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
5639 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
5640 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5641 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
5642 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5643 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5644 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
5645 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
5646
5647 <p>I found
5648 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
5649 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5650 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5651 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5652 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
5653 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
5654
5655 <pre>
5656 #!/bin/sh
5657
5658 # Based on
5659 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5660
5661 set -e
5662 set -x
5663
5664 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
5665     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
5666     exit 1
5667 else
5668     host="$1"
5669 fi
5670
5671 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5672     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
5673     exit 1
5674 fi
5675
5676 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
5677 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5678 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5679 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5680
5681 img=$host.img
5682 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5683 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5684
5685 parted $img mklabel msdos
5686 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
5687 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5688 parted $img set 1 boot on
5689
5690 modprobe dm-mod
5691 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5692 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5693
5694 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
5695 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5696 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5697
5698 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5699 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5700 </pre>
5701
5702 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
5703 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
5704
5705 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
5706 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
5707 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
5708 seem to work just fine.</p>
5709
5710       </div>
5711       <div class="tags">
5712
5713
5714         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>.
5715
5716
5717       </div>
5718     </div>
5719     <div class="padding"></div>
5720
5721     <div class="entry">
5722       <div class="title">
5723         <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>
5724       </div>
5725       <div class="date">
5726         20th November 2010
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="body">
5729         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
5730 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5731 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
5732 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
5733
5734 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
5735 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
5736 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
5737
5738 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5739
5740 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5741
5742 <blockquote><p>
5743   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
5744   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
5745   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
5746   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
5747   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
5748   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
5749   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
5750   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
5751   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
5752   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
5753   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5754   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5755   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
5756   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
5757   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
5758   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
5759   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5760   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
5761   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5762   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
5763   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
5764   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5765   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
5766   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
5767   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
5768   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5769   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5770   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
5771   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5772   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
5773   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
5774   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5775   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
5776   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
5777   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
5778   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
5779   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
5780   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
5781   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
5782   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
5783   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
5784   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
5785   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
5786   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
5787   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
5788   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
5789   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
5790   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
5791   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
5792   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
5793   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
5794   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
5795   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5796   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
5797   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
5798   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
5799   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
5800   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
5801   zip
5802 </p></blockquote>
5803
5804 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
5805
5806 <blockquote><p>
5807   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
5808   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
5809   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
5810   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
5811   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
5812   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
5813   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
5814   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
5815   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
5816   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
5817   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
5818   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5819   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5820   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5821   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5822   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
5823   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5824   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
5825   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
5826   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
5827   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
5828   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
5829   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5830   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
5831   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
5832   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
5833   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
5834   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
5835   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
5836 </p></blockquote>
5837
5838 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5839
5840 <blockquote><p>
5841   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5842 </p></blockquote>
5843
5844 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5845
5846 <blockquote><p>
5847 [nothing]
5848 </p></blockquote>
5849
5850 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5851
5852 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5853
5854 <blockquote><p>
5855   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
5856   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5857   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
5858   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
5859   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
5860   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
5861   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5862   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
5863   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
5864   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5865   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
5866   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
5867   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
5868   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
5869   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
5870   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
5871   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
5872   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
5873   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
5874   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
5875   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
5876   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
5877   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
5878   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
5879   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
5880   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
5881   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
5882   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
5883   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
5884   ttf-sazanami-gothic
5885 </p></blockquote>
5886
5887 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5888
5889 <blockquote><p>
5890   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
5891   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
5892   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
5893   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
5894   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
5895   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
5896   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
5897   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
5898   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
5899   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
5900   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
5901   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
5902   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
5903   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
5904   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5905   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5906   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
5907   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
5908   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5909   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
5910   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5911   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
5912   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5913   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5914   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
5915   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
5916   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
5917   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
5918   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
5919   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
5920   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
5921   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
5922   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
5923 </p></blockquote>
5924
5925 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5926
5927 <blockquote><p>
5928   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
5929   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
5930   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
5931   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
5932   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5933   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
5934   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5935 </p></blockquote>
5936
5937 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5938
5939 <blockquote><p>
5940   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
5941 </p></blockquote>
5942
5943       </div>
5944       <div class="tags">
5945
5946
5947         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>.
5948
5949
5950       </div>
5951     </div>
5952     <div class="padding"></div>
5953
5954     <div class="entry">
5955       <div class="title">
5956         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
5957       </div>
5958       <div class="date">
5959         20th November 2010
5960       </div>
5961       <div class="body">
5962         <p>Answering
5963 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
5964 call from the Gnash project</a> for
5965 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
5966 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
5967 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
5968 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
5969 releases out more often.</p>
5970
5971 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
5972 I have considered setting up a <a
5973 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
5974 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
5975 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
5976 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
5977 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
5978 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
5979 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
5980 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
5981 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
5982 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
5983 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
5984 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
5985
5986       </div>
5987       <div class="tags">
5988
5989
5990         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>.
5991
5992
5993       </div>
5994     </div>
5995     <div class="padding"></div>
5996
5997     <div class="entry">
5998       <div class="title">
5999         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6000       </div>
6001       <div class="date">
6002          9th November 2010
6003       </div>
6004       <div class="body">
6005         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6006
6007 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6008 3D linked in from
6009 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6010 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6011
6012       </div>
6013       <div class="tags">
6014
6015
6016         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>.
6017
6018
6019       </div>
6020     </div>
6021     <div class="padding"></div>
6022
6023     <div class="entry">
6024       <div class="title">
6025         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6026       </div>
6027       <div class="date">
6028         24th October 2010
6029       </div>
6030       <div class="body">
6031         <p>Some updates.</p>
6032
6033 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6034 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6035 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6036 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6037 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6038 :)</p>
6039
6040 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6041 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6042 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6043 It is called
6044 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6045 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6046 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6047 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6048 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6049 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6050
6051 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6052 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6053 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6054 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6055 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6056 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6057 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6058 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6059 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6060 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6061
6062       </div>
6063       <div class="tags">
6064
6065
6066         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>.
6067
6068
6069       </div>
6070     </div>
6071     <div class="padding"></div>
6072
6073     <div class="entry">
6074       <div class="title">
6075         <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>
6076       </div>
6077       <div class="date">
6078          4th September 2010
6079       </div>
6080       <div class="body">
6081         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6082 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6083 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6084 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6085 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6086 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6087 installed.</p>
6088
6089 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6090 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6091 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6092 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6093 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6094 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6095 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6096 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6097 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6098
6099 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6100 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6101 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6102 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6103 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6104 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6105 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6106 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6107 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6108 pages they want to visit.</p>
6109
6110 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6111 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6112 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6113 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6114 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6115 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6116 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6117 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6118 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6119 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6120 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6121
6122       </div>
6123       <div class="tags">
6124
6125
6126         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>.
6127
6128
6129       </div>
6130     </div>
6131     <div class="padding"></div>
6132
6133     <div class="entry">
6134       <div class="title">
6135         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6136       </div>
6137       <div class="date">
6138         27th July 2010
6139       </div>
6140       <div class="body">
6141         <p>I discovered this while doing
6142 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6143 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6144 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6145 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6146 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6147
6148 <p>An example is from todays
6149 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6150 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6151 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6152 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6153 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6154 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6155 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6156
6157 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6158
6159 <blockquote><pre>
6160 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6161  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6162   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6163 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6164  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6165 </pre></blockquote>
6166
6167 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6168 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6169 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6170 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6171 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6172 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6173 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6174 of dependency loops.</p>
6175
6176 <p>Thanks to
6177 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6178 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6179 dependencies
6180 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6181 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6182
6183 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6184 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6185 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6186 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6187 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6188 it.</p>
6189
6190       </div>
6191       <div class="tags">
6192
6193
6194         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>.
6195
6196
6197       </div>
6198     </div>
6199     <div class="padding"></div>
6200
6201     <div class="entry">
6202       <div class="title">
6203         <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>
6204       </div>
6205       <div class="date">
6206         17th July 2010
6207       </div>
6208       <div class="body">
6209         <p>This is a
6210 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6211 on my
6212 <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
6213 work</a> on
6214 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6215 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6216
6217 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6218 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6219 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6220 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6221
6222 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6223 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6224 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6225
6226 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6227
6228 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6229 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6230 the web.
6231
6232 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6233 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6234 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6235 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6236 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6237 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6238
6239 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6240 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6241 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6242 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6243 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6244 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6245 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6246 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6247 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6248 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6249 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6250 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6251 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6252 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6253 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6254 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6255
6256 <blockquote><pre>
6257 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6258   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6259   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6260   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6261   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6262   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6263   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6264
6265 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6266   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6267   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6268   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6269   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6270   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6271 </pre></blockquote>
6272
6273 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6274 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6275 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6276 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6277 also exist.</p>
6278
6279 <blockquote><pre>
6280 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6281 objectclass: top
6282 objectclass: dnsdomain
6283 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6284 dc: tjener
6285 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6286 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6287
6288 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6289 objectclass: top
6290 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6291 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6292 dc: 2
6293 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6294 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6295 </pre></blockquote>
6296
6297 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6298 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6299 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6300 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6301 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6302 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6303 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6304 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6305 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6306 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6307 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6308 instead.</p>
6309
6310 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6311 like this:</p>
6312
6313 <blockquote><pre>
6314 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6315   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6316   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6317   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6318   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6319   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6320
6321 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6322   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6323 </pre></blockquote>
6324
6325 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6326 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6327 reverse lookups.</p>
6328
6329 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6330 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6331 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6332 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6333
6334 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6335 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6336 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6337
6338 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6339 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6340 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6341 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6342 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6343
6344 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6345 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6346 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6347 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6348 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6349
6350 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6351 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6352 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6353 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6354 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6355 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6356
6357 <blockquote><pre>
6358 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6359     SUP top
6360     AUXILIARY
6361     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6362           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6363           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6364           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6365           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6366     ))
6367 </pre></blockquote>
6368
6369 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6370 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6371 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6372 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6373 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6374 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6375
6376 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6377
6378 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6379 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6380 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6381 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6382 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6383
6384 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6385 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6386 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6387 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6388
6389 <blockquote><pre>
6390 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6391 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6392 </pre></blockquote>
6393
6394 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6395 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6396 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6397 search result is this entry:</p>
6398
6399 <blockquote><pre>
6400 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6401 cn: dhcp
6402 objectClass: top
6403 objectClass: dhcpServer
6404 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6405 </pre></blockquote>
6406
6407 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6408 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6409 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6410 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6411 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6412 The search result is this entry:</p>
6413
6414 <blockquote><pre>
6415 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6416 cn: DHCP Config
6417 objectClass: top
6418 objectClass: dhcpService
6419 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6420 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6421 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6422 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6423 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6424 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6425 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6426 </pre></blockquote>
6427
6428 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6429 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6430 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6431 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6432 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6433 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
6434 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6435 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6436 related computer objects.</p>
6437
6438 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6439 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6440 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
6441 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6442 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
6443 like:</p>
6444
6445 <blockquote><pre>
6446 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6447 cn: hostname
6448 objectClass: top
6449 objectClass: dhcpHost
6450 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6451 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6452 </pre></blockquote>
6453
6454 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6455 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6456 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
6457 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6458 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
6459 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6460 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6461 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6462 structural object class.
6463
6464 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6465
6466 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6467 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
6468 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
6469 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6470 in the configuration.</p>
6471
6472 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6473 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6474 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6475 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6476 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6477 structure.</p>
6478
6479 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6480 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
6481
6482 <blockquote><pre>
6483 ou=services
6484   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6485     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6486     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6487       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6488         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6489     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6490       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6491         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6492     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6493       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6494 </pre></blockquote>
6495
6496 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6497 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6498 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6499 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
6500
6501 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6502 like this:</p>
6503
6504 <blockquote><pre>
6505 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6506 dc: hostname
6507 objectClass: top
6508 objectClass: dhcpHost
6509 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6510 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6511 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6512 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6513 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6514 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6515 </pre></blockquote>
6516
6517 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6518 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6519 auxiliary object class.</p>
6520
6521       </div>
6522       <div class="tags">
6523
6524
6525         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>.
6526
6527
6528       </div>
6529     </div>
6530     <div class="padding"></div>
6531
6532     <div class="entry">
6533       <div class="title">
6534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
6535       </div>
6536       <div class="date">
6537         14th July 2010
6538       </div>
6539       <div class="body">
6540         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6541 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6542 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6543 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6544 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
6545
6546 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6547 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
6548
6549 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6550 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
6551 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6552 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6553 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6554 to a slave DNS server.</p>
6555
6556 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6557 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6558 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6559 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6560 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
6561 seem to work.</p>
6562
6563 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6564 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6565 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
6566 this:</p>
6567
6568 <blockquote><pre>
6569   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6570   cn: hostname
6571   objectClass: dhcphost
6572   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6573   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6574   associateddomain: hostname.intern
6575   arecord: 10.11.12.13
6576   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6577   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6578   ldapconfigsound: Y
6579 </pre></blockquote>
6580
6581 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6582 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6583 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
6584 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
6585
6586 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6587 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6588 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6589 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6590 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6591 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6592 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6593 might be a good place to put it.</p>
6594
6595 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6596 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6597
6598       </div>
6599       <div class="tags">
6600
6601
6602         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>.
6603
6604
6605       </div>
6606     </div>
6607     <div class="padding"></div>
6608
6609     <div class="entry">
6610       <div class="title">
6611         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
6612       </div>
6613       <div class="date">
6614         11th July 2010
6615       </div>
6616       <div class="body">
6617         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
6618 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
6619 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
6620 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
6621
6622 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
6623 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
6624 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
6625 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
6626 LTSP clients.</p>
6627
6628 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
6629 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
6630 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
6631
6632 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
6633 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
6634 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
6635
6636 <blockquote><pre>
6637 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
6638 #
6639 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
6640 #
6641 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
6642 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
6643 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
6644 #
6645 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
6646 # existence of attribute names.
6647 #
6648 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
6649 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
6650 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
6651 #
6652 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
6653 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
6654 #
6655 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
6656 #     SUP top
6657 #     AUXILIARY
6658 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
6659
6660 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
6661 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
6662     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
6663     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
6664         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
6665         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
6666             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
6667             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
6668             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
6669             # bass value on to clients
6670             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
6671         done
6672     done
6673 fi
6674 </pre></blockquote>
6675
6676 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
6677 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
6678 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
6679 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
6680 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
6681
6682 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6683 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6684
6685 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
6686 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
6687 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
6688 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
6689 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
6690 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
6691
6692       </div>
6693       <div class="tags">
6694
6695
6696         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>.
6697
6698
6699       </div>
6700     </div>
6701     <div class="padding"></div>
6702
6703     <div class="entry">
6704       <div class="title">
6705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
6706       </div>
6707       <div class="date">
6708          9th July 2010
6709       </div>
6710       <div class="body">
6711         <p>Since
6712 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
6713 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
6714 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
6715 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
6716 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
6717 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
6718 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
6719 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
6720 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
6721 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
6722 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
6723 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
6724 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
6725
6726       </div>
6727       <div class="tags">
6728
6729
6730         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>.
6731
6732
6733       </div>
6734     </div>
6735     <div class="padding"></div>
6736
6737     <div class="entry">
6738       <div class="title">
6739         <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>
6740       </div>
6741       <div class="date">
6742          3rd July 2010
6743       </div>
6744       <div class="body">
6745         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
6746 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
6747 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
6748 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
6749 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
6750 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
6751 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
6752 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
6753
6754 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
6755 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
6756 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
6757 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
6758 publish the difference.</p>
6759
6760 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6761
6762 <blockquote><p>
6763   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6764   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
6765   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
6766   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6767   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
6768   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6769   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
6770   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
6771 </p></blockquote>
6772
6773 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6774
6775 <blockquote><p>
6776   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
6777   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
6778   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
6779   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
6780   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
6781   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
6782   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6783   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6784   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6785   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6786   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
6787   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
6788   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
6789   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
6790   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
6791   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6792   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
6793   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
6794   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
6795   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
6796 </p></blockquote>
6797
6798 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6799
6800 <blockquote><p>
6801   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
6802   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
6803   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6804   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6805   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
6806   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
6807   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
6808   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6809   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6810   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6811   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6812   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
6813   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
6814   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
6815   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
6816   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
6817   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
6818   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
6819   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
6820   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
6821   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
6822 </p></blockquote>
6823
6824 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6825
6826 <blockquote><p>
6827   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
6828   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
6829   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
6830 </p></blockquote>
6831
6832 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
6833 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
6834 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
6835 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
6836 the difference somewhat.
6837
6838       </div>
6839       <div class="tags">
6840
6841
6842         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>.
6843
6844
6845       </div>
6846     </div>
6847     <div class="padding"></div>
6848
6849     <div class="entry">
6850       <div class="title">
6851         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
6852       </div>
6853       <div class="date">
6854         28th June 2010
6855       </div>
6856       <div class="body">
6857         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
6858 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
6859 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
6860 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
6861 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
6862 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
6863 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
6864 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
6865 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
6866 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
6867
6868 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
6869 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
6870 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
6871 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
6872 released.</p>
6873
6874 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
6875 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
6876 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
6877 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
6878
6879 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
6880 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6881
6882 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
6883 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
6884 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
6885 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
6886 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
6887
6888       </div>
6889       <div class="tags">
6890
6891
6892         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>.
6893
6894
6895       </div>
6896     </div>
6897     <div class="padding"></div>
6898
6899     <div class="entry">
6900       <div class="title">
6901         <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>
6902       </div>
6903       <div class="date">
6904         24th June 2010
6905       </div>
6906       <div class="body">
6907         <p>A while back, I
6908 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
6909 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
6910 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
6911 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
6912
6913 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
6914 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
6915 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
6916 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
6917
6918 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
6919 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
6920 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
6921 Debian Edu.</p>
6922
6923 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
6924 the
6925 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
6926 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
6927 available today from IETF.</p>
6928
6929 <pre>
6930 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
6931 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
6932 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
6933  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
6934         NAME 'dhcpHost'
6935         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
6936 -       SUP top
6937 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
6938         MUST cn
6939         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
6940         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
6941 </pre>
6942
6943 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
6944 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
6945 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
6946
6947 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6948 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6949
6950       </div>
6951       <div class="tags">
6952
6953
6954         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>.
6955
6956
6957       </div>
6958     </div>
6959     <div class="padding"></div>
6960
6961     <div class="entry">
6962       <div class="title">
6963         <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>
6964       </div>
6965       <div class="date">
6966         16th June 2010
6967       </div>
6968       <div class="body">
6969         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
6970 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
6971 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
6972 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
6973 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
6974 this:
6975
6976 <blockquote><pre>
6977 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6978 tasksel --new-install
6979 </pre></blockquote>
6980
6981 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
6982 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
6983 any output what so ever.
6984
6985 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
6986 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
6987 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
6988 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
6989 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
6990 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
6991 code like this:
6992
6993 <blockquote><pre>
6994 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6995 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
6996 $cmd
6997 </pre></blockquote>
6998
6999 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7000 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7001 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7002 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7003 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7004 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7005 installation.</p>
7006
7007 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7008 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7009 like this.</p>
7010
7011       </div>
7012       <div class="tags">
7013
7014
7015         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>.
7016
7017
7018       </div>
7019     </div>
7020     <div class="padding"></div>
7021
7022     <div class="entry">
7023       <div class="title">
7024         <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>
7025       </div>
7026       <div class="date">
7027         13th June 2010
7028       </div>
7029       <div class="body">
7030         <p>My
7031 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7032 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7033 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7034 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7035 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7036 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7037 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7038
7039 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7040 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7041 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7042 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7043 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7044 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7045 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7046 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7047
7048 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7049 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7050 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7051 too surprising.</p>
7052
7053 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7054 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7055 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7056 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7057 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7058 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7059 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7060 continue.</p>
7061
7062 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7063 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7064   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7065   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7066   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7067   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7068   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7069   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7070   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7071   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7072   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7073   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7074   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7075   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7076   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7077   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7078   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7079   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7080   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7081   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7082   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7083   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7084   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7085   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7086   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7087   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7088   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7089   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7090   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7091   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7092
7093 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7094
7095 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7096   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7097   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7098   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7099   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7100   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7101   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7102   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7103   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7104   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7105   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7106   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7107   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7108   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7109   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7110   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7111   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7112   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7113   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7114   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7115   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7116   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7117   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7118   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7119   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7120   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7121   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7122   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7123   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7124   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7125   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7126   zip</p>
7127
7128 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7129
7130 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7131   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7132   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7133   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7134   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7135   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7136   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7137   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7138   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7139   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7140   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7141   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7142   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7143   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7144   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7145   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7146   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7147   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7148   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7149   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7150   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7151   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7152   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7153   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7154   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7155   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7156   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7157   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7158
7159 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7160 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7161   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7162   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7163   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7164   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7165   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7166   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7167   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7168   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7169   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7170   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7171   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7172   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7173   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7174   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7175   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7176   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7177   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7178   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7179   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7180   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7181   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7182   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7183   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7184   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7185   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7186   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7187   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7188   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7189   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7190   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7191   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7192   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7193   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7194   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7195   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7196   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7197
7198
7199       </div>
7200       <div class="tags">
7201
7202
7203         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>.
7204
7205
7206       </div>
7207     </div>
7208     <div class="padding"></div>
7209
7210     <div class="entry">
7211       <div class="title">
7212         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7213       </div>
7214       <div class="date">
7215         11th June 2010
7216       </div>
7217       <div class="body">
7218         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7219 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7220 have been discovered and reported in the process
7221 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7222 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7223 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7224 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7225 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7226
7227 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7228 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7229 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7230 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7231 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7232 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7233
7234 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7235 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7236 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7237 is created.  The bug report
7238 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7239 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7240 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7241 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7242 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7243 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7244 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7245 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7246 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7247 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7248 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7249 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7250 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7251
7252 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7253 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7254 trick:</p>
7255
7256 <blockquote><pre>
7257 #!/bin/sh
7258 set -ex
7259
7260 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7261     desktop=$1
7262 else
7263     desktop=gnome
7264 fi
7265
7266 from=lenny
7267 to=squeeze
7268
7269 exec &lt; /dev/null
7270 unset LANG
7271 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7272 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7273 fuser -mv .
7274 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7275 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7276 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7277 #!/bin/sh
7278 exit 101
7279 EOF
7280 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7281 exit_cleanup() {
7282     umount $tmpdir/proc
7283 }
7284 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7285 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7286 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7287
7288 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7289
7290 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7291 # to return the correct answers.
7292 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7293     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7294
7295 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7296 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7297     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7298 #!/bin/sh
7299 exit 2
7300 EOF
7301     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7302 done
7303
7304 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7305 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7306 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7307 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7308
7309 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7310 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7311 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7312 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7313 fuser -mv
7314 </pre></blockquote>
7315
7316 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7317 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7318 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7319 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7320 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7321 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7322
7323 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7324 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7325 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7326 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7327 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7328 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7329 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7330
7331 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7332 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7333 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7334 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7335 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7336 packages.</p>
7337
7338       </div>
7339       <div class="tags">
7340
7341
7342         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>.
7343
7344
7345       </div>
7346     </div>
7347     <div class="padding"></div>
7348
7349     <div class="entry">
7350       <div class="title">
7351         <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>
7352       </div>
7353       <div class="date">
7354          6th June 2010
7355       </div>
7356       <div class="body">
7357         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7358 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7359 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7360 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7361 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7362 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7363 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7364
7365 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7366 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7367 COLUMNS):</p>
7368
7369 <blockquote><pre>
7370 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7371 previous=N
7372 PREVLEVEL=
7373 RUNLEVEL=
7374 runlevel=S
7375 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7376 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7377 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7378 </pre></blockquote>
7379
7380 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7381 script.</p>
7382
7383 <blockquote><pre>
7384 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7385 previous=N
7386 PREVLEVEL=N
7387 RUNLEVEL=S
7388 runlevel=S
7389 </pre></blockquote>
7390
7391 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7392 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7393 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7394
7395 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7396 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7397 choice.</p>
7398
7399       </div>
7400       <div class="tags">
7401
7402
7403         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>.
7404
7405
7406       </div>
7407     </div>
7408     <div class="padding"></div>
7409
7410     <div class="entry">
7411       <div class="title">
7412         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7413       </div>
7414       <div class="date">
7415          6th June 2010
7416       </div>
7417       <div class="body">
7418         <p>Via the
7419 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7420 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7421 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7422 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7423 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7424
7425       </div>
7426       <div class="tags">
7427
7428
7429         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>.
7430
7431
7432       </div>
7433     </div>
7434     <div class="padding"></div>
7435
7436     <div class="entry">
7437       <div class="title">
7438         <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>
7439       </div>
7440       <div class="date">
7441          3rd June 2010
7442       </div>
7443       <div class="body">
7444         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
7445 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
7446 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
7447 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
7448 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
7449
7450 <blockquote><pre>
7451 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
7452   vendor                    count
7453   Dell Computer Corporation     1
7454     PowerEdge 1750              1
7455   IBM                           1
7456     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
7457   Intel                         2
7458   [no-dmi-info]                 3
7459 maintainer:~#
7460 </pre></blockquote>
7461
7462 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
7463 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
7464 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
7465 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
7466 option to list the individual machines.</p>
7467
7468 <p>A larger list is
7469 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
7470 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
7471 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
7472 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
7473 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
7474 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
7475 collector.</p>
7476
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="tags">
7479
7480
7481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
7482
7483
7484       </div>
7485     </div>
7486     <div class="padding"></div>
7487
7488     <div class="entry">
7489       <div class="title">
7490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
7491       </div>
7492       <div class="date">
7493          1st June 2010
7494       </div>
7495       <div class="body">
7496         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
7497 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
7498 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
7499 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
7500 wait.</p>
7501
7502 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
7503 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
7504 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
7505 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
7506 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
7507 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
7508
7509 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
7510 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
7511 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
7512 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
7513 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
7514 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
7515 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
7516 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
7517
7518 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
7519
7520       </div>
7521       <div class="tags">
7522
7523
7524         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>.
7525
7526
7527       </div>
7528     </div>
7529     <div class="padding"></div>
7530
7531     <div class="entry">
7532       <div class="title">
7533         <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>
7534       </div>
7535       <div class="date">
7536         27th May 2010
7537       </div>
7538       <div class="body">
7539         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
7540 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
7541 issues are known and should be solved:
7542
7543 <p><ul>
7544
7545 <li>The wicd package seen to
7546 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
7547 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
7548 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
7549 seem to be on the case.</li>
7550
7551 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
7552 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
7553 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
7554 maintainer is on the case.</li>
7555
7556 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
7557 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
7558 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
7559 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
7560 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
7561 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
7562 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
7563 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
7564
7565 </ul></p>
7566
7567 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
7568 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
7569 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
7570 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
7571
7572 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7573 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7574 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7575 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7576
7577 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
7578
7579       </div>
7580       <div class="tags">
7581
7582
7583         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>.
7584
7585
7586       </div>
7587     </div>
7588     <div class="padding"></div>
7589
7590     <div class="entry">
7591       <div class="title">
7592         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
7593       </div>
7594       <div class="date">
7595         22nd May 2010
7596       </div>
7597       <div class="body">
7598         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7599 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
7600 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
7601 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
7602
7603 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
7604 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
7605 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
7606 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
7607 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
7608 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
7609 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
7610 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
7611 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
7612 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
7613 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
7614 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
7615 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
7616 going to work.</p>
7617
7618 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
7619 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
7620 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
7621 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
7622 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
7623 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
7624 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
7625 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
7626 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
7627 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
7628 Edu.</p>
7629
7630 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
7631 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
7632 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
7633 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
7634 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
7635 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
7636
7637 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
7638 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
7639
7640       </div>
7641       <div class="tags">
7642
7643
7644         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>.
7645
7646
7647       </div>
7648     </div>
7649     <div class="padding"></div>
7650
7651     <div class="entry">
7652       <div class="title">
7653         <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>
7654       </div>
7655       <div class="date">
7656         14th May 2010
7657       </div>
7658       <div class="body">
7659         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
7660 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
7661 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
7662 expected, if I am to believe the
7663 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
7664 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
7665 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
7666 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
7667 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
7668 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
7669 version.</p>
7670
7671 More information about
7672 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7673 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
7674 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
7675 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
7676
7677 <blockquote><pre>
7678 CONCURRENCY=none
7679 </pre></blockquote>
7680
7681 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7682 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7683 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7684 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7685
7686       </div>
7687       <div class="tags">
7688
7689
7690         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>.
7691
7692
7693       </div>
7694     </div>
7695     <div class="padding"></div>
7696
7697     <div class="entry">
7698       <div class="title">
7699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
7700       </div>
7701       <div class="date">
7702         14th May 2010
7703       </div>
7704       <div class="body">
7705         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
7706 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
7707 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
7708 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
7709 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
7710 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
7711 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
7712 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
7713
7714 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
7715 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
7716 this on the collector host:</p>
7717
7718 <blockquote><pre>
7719 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
7720 </pre></blockquote>
7721
7722 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
7723 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
7724
7725 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
7726 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
7727 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
7728 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
7729 written yet.</p>
7730
7731       </div>
7732       <div class="tags">
7733
7734
7735         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>.
7736
7737
7738       </div>
7739     </div>
7740     <div class="padding"></div>
7741
7742     <div class="entry">
7743       <div class="title">
7744         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
7745       </div>
7746       <div class="date">
7747         13th May 2010
7748       </div>
7749       <div class="body">
7750         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
7751 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
7752 has been
7753 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
7754
7755 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
7756 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
7757 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
7758 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
7759 based boot system.  Tollef is
7760 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
7761 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
7762 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
7763 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
7764 at the moment do not.</p>
7765
7766 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
7767 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
7768 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
7769 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
7770 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
7771 way forward.</p>
7772
7773 <p>In the mean time, based on the
7774 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
7775 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
7776 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
7777 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
7778 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
7779 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
7780 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
7781 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
7782
7783       </div>
7784       <div class="tags">
7785
7786
7787         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>.
7788
7789
7790       </div>
7791     </div>
7792     <div class="padding"></div>
7793
7794     <div class="entry">
7795       <div class="title">
7796         <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>
7797       </div>
7798       <div class="date">
7799          6th May 2010
7800       </div>
7801       <div class="body">
7802         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
7803 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
7804 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
7805 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
7806 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7807 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
7808 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
7809
7810 <blockquote><pre>
7811 CONCURRENCY=makefile
7812 </pre></blockquote>
7813
7814 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
7815 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
7816 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
7817 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
7818 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
7819 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
7820 make this happen.</p>
7821
7822 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
7823 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
7824 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
7825 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
7826 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
7827
7828 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
7829 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
7830 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
7831 fix the remaining issues.</p>
7832
7833 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7834 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7835 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7836 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7837
7838       </div>
7839       <div class="tags">
7840
7841
7842         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>.
7843
7844
7845       </div>
7846     </div>
7847     <div class="padding"></div>
7848
7849     <div class="entry">
7850       <div class="title">
7851         <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>
7852       </div>
7853       <div class="date">
7854         27th July 2009
7855       </div>
7856       <div class="body">
7857         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
7858 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
7859 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
7860 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
7861 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
7862 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
7863 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
7864
7865 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
7866 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
7867 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
7868
7869       </div>
7870       <div class="tags">
7871
7872
7873         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>.
7874
7875
7876       </div>
7877     </div>
7878     <div class="padding"></div>
7879
7880     <div class="entry">
7881       <div class="title">
7882         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
7883       </div>
7884       <div class="date">
7885         22nd July 2009
7886       </div>
7887       <div class="body">
7888         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
7889 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
7890 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
7891 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
7892 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
7893 the package up to date.</p>
7894
7895 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
7896 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
7897 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
7898 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
7899 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
7900 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
7901 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
7902 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
7903 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
7904 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
7905 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
7906 working on the future release.</p>
7907
7908 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
7909 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
7910
7911       </div>
7912       <div class="tags">
7913
7914
7915         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>.
7916
7917
7918       </div>
7919     </div>
7920     <div class="padding"></div>
7921
7922     <div class="entry">
7923       <div class="title">
7924         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
7925       </div>
7926       <div class="date">
7927         24th June 2009
7928       </div>
7929       <div class="body">
7930         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
7931 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
7932 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
7933 funded
7934 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
7935 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
7936 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
7937 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
7938 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
7939 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
7940
7941 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
7942 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
7943 boot:</p>
7944
7945 <ul>
7946
7947 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
7948
7949 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
7950    clock is in UTC.</li>
7951
7952 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
7953    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7954    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
7955
7956 </ul>
7957
7958 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
7959 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
7960 Villegas</a>.
7961
7962 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
7963 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
7964 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
7965 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
7966 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
7967 using this.</p>
7968
7969 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
7970 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
7971 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
7972 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
7973 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
7974 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
7975 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
7976
7977       </div>
7978       <div class="tags">
7979
7980
7981         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>.
7982
7983
7984       </div>
7985     </div>
7986     <div class="padding"></div>
7987
7988     <div class="entry">
7989       <div class="title">
7990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
7991       </div>
7992       <div class="date">
7993         17th May 2009
7994       </div>
7995       <div class="body">
7996         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
7997 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
7998 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
7999 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8000 dager siden kom
8001 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8002 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8003 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8004 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8005 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8006
8007 <blockquote>
8008 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8009 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8010 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8011 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8012 </blockquote>
8013
8014 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8015 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8016 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8017 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8018 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8019
8020 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8021 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8022 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8023
8024       </div>
8025       <div class="tags">
8026
8027
8028         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>.
8029
8030
8031       </div>
8032     </div>
8033     <div class="padding"></div>
8034
8035     <div class="entry">
8036       <div class="title">
8037         <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>
8038       </div>
8039       <div class="date">
8040          7th May 2009
8041       </div>
8042       <div class="body">
8043         <p>Kom over
8044 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8045 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8046 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8047 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8048 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8049 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8050 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8051
8052       </div>
8053       <div class="tags">
8054
8055
8056         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>.
8057
8058
8059       </div>
8060     </div>
8061     <div class="padding"></div>
8062
8063     <div class="entry">
8064       <div class="title">
8065         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8066       </div>
8067       <div class="date">
8068          2nd May 2009
8069       </div>
8070       <div class="body">
8071         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8072 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8073 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8074 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8075 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8076 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8077 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8078 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8079 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8080 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8081 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8082 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8083 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8084 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8085 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8086 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8087 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8088 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8089 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8090 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8091
8092 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8093 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8094 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8095 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8096 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8097 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8098 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8099 betydelige.</p>
8100
8101       </div>
8102       <div class="tags">
8103
8104
8105         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>.
8106
8107
8108       </div>
8109     </div>
8110     <div class="padding"></div>
8111
8112     <div class="entry">
8113       <div class="title">
8114         <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>
8115       </div>
8116       <div class="date">
8117          2nd May 2009
8118       </div>
8119       <div class="body">
8120         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8121 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8122 do not yet know them.</p>
8123
8124 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8125 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8126 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8127 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8128 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8129 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8130 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8131 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8132 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8133 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8134 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8135
8136 <p>The second one is
8137 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8138 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8139 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8140 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8141 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8142 and the company behind it is running
8143 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8144 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8145 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8146 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8147 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8148 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8149 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8150 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8151
8152 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8153 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8154 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8155 surrounded by today.</p>
8156
8157       </div>
8158       <div class="tags">
8159
8160
8161         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>.
8162
8163
8164       </div>
8165     </div>
8166     <div class="padding"></div>
8167
8168     <div class="entry">
8169       <div class="title">
8170         <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>
8171       </div>
8172       <div class="date">
8173         28th April 2009
8174       </div>
8175       <div class="body">
8176         <p>Julien Blache
8177 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8178 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8179 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8180 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8181 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8182 properties.</p>
8183
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="tags">
8186
8187
8188         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>.
8189
8190
8191       </div>
8192     </div>
8193     <div class="padding"></div>
8194
8195     <div class="entry">
8196       <div class="title">
8197         <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>
8198       </div>
8199       <div class="date">
8200         30th March 2009
8201       </div>
8202       <div class="body">
8203         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8204 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8205 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8206 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8207 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8208 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8209 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8210 application.</p>
8211
8212 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8213 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8214 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8215 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8216 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8217 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8218 blocked from doing so.</p>
8219
8220 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8221 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8222 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8223 requirements change.</p>
8224
8225 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8226 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8227 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8228
8229       </div>
8230       <div class="tags">
8231
8232
8233         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>.
8234
8235
8236       </div>
8237     </div>
8238     <div class="padding"></div>
8239
8240     <div class="entry">
8241       <div class="title">
8242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8243       </div>
8244       <div class="date">
8245         29th March 2009
8246       </div>
8247       <div class="body">
8248         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8249 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8250 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8251 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8252 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8253 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8254 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8255 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8256 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8257 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8258 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8259 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8260 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8261 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8262 now. :)</p>
8263
8264       </div>
8265       <div class="tags">
8266
8267
8268         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>.
8269
8270
8271       </div>
8272     </div>
8273     <div class="padding"></div>
8274
8275     <div class="entry">
8276       <div class="title">
8277         <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>
8278       </div>
8279       <div class="date">
8280         29th March 2009
8281       </div>
8282       <div class="body">
8283         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8284 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8285 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8286 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8287 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8288 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8289
8290 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8291 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8292 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8293 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8294 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8295 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8296 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8297 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8298 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8299 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8300 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8301 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8302 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8303
8304 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8305 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8306 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8307 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8308
8309 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8310 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8311
8312 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8313 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8314 new IETF work group?</p>
8315
8316       </div>
8317       <div class="tags">
8318
8319
8320         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>.
8321
8322
8323       </div>
8324     </div>
8325     <div class="padding"></div>
8326
8327     <div class="entry">
8328       <div class="title">
8329         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8330       </div>
8331       <div class="date">
8332         15th February 2009
8333       </div>
8334       <div class="body">
8335         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8336 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8337 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8338 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8339 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8340 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8341 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8342 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8343 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8344 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8345 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8346 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8347
8348       </div>
8349       <div class="tags">
8350
8351
8352         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>.
8353
8354
8355       </div>
8356     </div>
8357     <div class="padding"></div>
8358
8359     <div class="entry">
8360       <div class="title">
8361         <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>
8362       </div>
8363       <div class="date">
8364          7th December 2008
8365       </div>
8366       <div class="body">
8367         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8368 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8369 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8370 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8371 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8372 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8373 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8374 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8375
8376 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8377 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8378 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8379 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8380 of these cards.</p>
8381
8382       </div>
8383       <div class="tags">
8384
8385
8386         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>.
8387
8388
8389       </div>
8390     </div>
8391     <div class="padding"></div>
8392
8393     <div class="entry">
8394       <div class="title">
8395         <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>
8396       </div>
8397       <div class="date">
8398         25th November 2008
8399       </div>
8400       <div class="body">
8401         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8402 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8403 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8404 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8405 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8406 notes are available on
8407 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8408 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8409 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8410 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8411 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8412 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8413 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8414 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8415 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8416
8417 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8418 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8419
8420       </div>
8421       <div class="tags">
8422
8423
8424         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>.
8425
8426
8427       </div>
8428     </div>
8429     <div class="padding"></div>
8430
8431     <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>
8432     <div id="sidebar">
8433
8434
8435
8436 <h2>Archive</h2>
8437 <ul>
8438
8439 <li>2014
8440 <ul>
8441
8442 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8443
8444 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
8445
8446 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
8447
8448 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8449
8450 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
8451
8452 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8453
8454 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
8455
8456 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
8457
8458 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (4)</a></li>
8459
8460 </ul></li>
8461
8462 <li>2013
8463 <ul>
8464
8465 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
8466
8467 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
8468
8469 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
8470
8471 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
8472
8473 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8474
8475 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
8476
8477 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8478
8479 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8480
8481 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8482
8483 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
8484
8485 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
8486
8487 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8488
8489 </ul></li>
8490
8491 <li>2012
8492 <ul>
8493
8494 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
8495
8496 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
8497
8498 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
8499
8500 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
8501
8502 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
8503
8504 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
8505
8506 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
8507
8508 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8509
8510 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
8511
8512 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
8513
8514 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
8515
8516 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8517
8518 </ul></li>
8519
8520 <li>2011
8521 <ul>
8522
8523 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
8524
8525 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
8526
8527 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
8528
8529 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8530
8531 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
8532
8533 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8534
8535 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8536
8537 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8538
8539 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
8540
8541 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8542
8543 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8544
8545 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
8546
8547 </ul></li>
8548
8549 <li>2010
8550 <ul>
8551
8552 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8553
8554 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
8555
8556 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
8557
8558 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
8559
8560 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8561
8562 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
8563
8564 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
8565
8566 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
8567
8568 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
8569
8570 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
8571
8572 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
8573
8574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
8575
8576 </ul></li>
8577
8578 <li>2009
8579 <ul>
8580
8581 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
8582
8583 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
8584
8585 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
8586
8587 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
8588
8589 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8590
8591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
8592
8593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
8594
8595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8596
8597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
8598
8599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8600
8601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8602
8603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8604
8605 </ul></li>
8606
8607 <li>2008
8608 <ul>
8609
8610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
8611
8612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8613
8614 </ul></li>
8615
8616 </ul>
8617
8618
8619
8620 <h2>Tags</h2>
8621 <ul>
8622
8623  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
8624
8625  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
8626
8627  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
8628
8629  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
8630
8631  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
8632
8633  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
8634
8635  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
8636
8637  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
8638
8639  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (102)</a></li>
8640
8641  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (149)</a></li>
8642
8643  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
8644
8645  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
8646
8647  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
8648
8649  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
8650
8651  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (254)</a></li>
8652
8653  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
8654
8655  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
8656
8657  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
8658
8659  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
8660
8661  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
8662
8663  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
8664
8665  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (9)</a></li>
8666
8667  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
8668
8669  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
8670
8671  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
8672
8673  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
8674
8675  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
8676
8677  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (30)</a></li>
8678
8679  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
8680
8681  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
8682
8683  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
8684
8685  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
8686
8687  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
8688
8689  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (75)</a></li>
8690
8691  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
8692
8693  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
8694
8695  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
8696
8697  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
8698
8699  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
8700
8701  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
8702
8703  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
8704
8705  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
8706
8707  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
8708
8709  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
8710
8711  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
8712
8713  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
8714
8715  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
8716
8717  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
8718
8719  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (26)</a></li>
8720
8721  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
8722
8723  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
8724
8725  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (43)</a></li>
8726
8727  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
8728
8729  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
8730
8731 </ul>
8732
8733
8734     </div>
8735     <p style="text-align: right">
8736  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
8737 </p>
8738
8739   </body>
8740 </html>