blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</div>
  24       <div class="date"> 9th January 2013</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
  26 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
  27 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
  28 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
  29 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
  30 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
  31 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
  32 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
  33 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
  34 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
  35 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
  36
  37 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
  38 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
  39 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
  40 simple:
  41
  42 <ul>
  43
  44 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
  45   starting when a user log in.</li>
  46
  47 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
  48   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
  49
  50 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
  51   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
  52   packages.</li>
  53
  54 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
  55   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
  56
  57 </ul>
  58
  59 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
  60 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
  61 discover database to find packages and
  62 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
  63 packages.</p>
  64
  65 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
  66 draft package is now checked into
  67 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
  68 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
  69 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
  70 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
  71 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
  72 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
  73 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
  74 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
  75 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
  76 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
  77 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
  78 because of the freeze).</p>
  79
  80 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
  81 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
  82 inserted):</p>
  83
  84 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
  85
  86 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
  87 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
  88 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
  89
  90 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
  91 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
  92 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
  93 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
  94 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
  95 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
  96 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
  97
  98 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
  99 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
 100 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
 101 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
 102 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
 103 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
 104 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
 105 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
 106 not be installed?</p>
 107
 108 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
 109 please send me an email. :)</p>
 110 </div>
 111
 112       <div class="tags">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>.</div>
 113
 114
 115     </div>
 116
 117
 118
 119
 120     <div id="sidebar">
 121
 122
 123
 124 <h2>Archive</h2>
 125 <ul>
 126
 127 <li>2013
 128 <ul>
 129
 130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 131
 132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 133
 134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 135
 136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 137
 138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 139
 140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 141
 142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 143
 144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 145
 146 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (2)</a></li>
 147
 148 </ul></li>
 149
 150 <li>2012
 151 <ul>
 152
 153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 154
 155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 156
 157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 158
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 160
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 163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
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 165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 166
 167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
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 169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
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 171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
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 173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
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 175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 176
 177 </ul></li>
 178
 179 <li>2011
 180 <ul>
 181
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 236
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 262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 263
 264 </ul></li>
 265
 266 <li>2008
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 270
 271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 272
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 274
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