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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/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         22nd November 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
  32 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
  33 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
  34 courtesy of
  35 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
  36 Schubert</a> and
  37 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
  38 McVittie</a>.
  39
  40 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
  41 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
  42 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
  43 you upgrade:</p>
  44
  45 <p><blockquote><pre>
  46 Package: systemd-sysv
  47 Pin: release o=Debian
  48 Pin-Priority: -1
  49 </pre></blockquote><p>
  50
  51 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
  52 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
  53 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
  54 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
  55 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
  56
  57 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
  58 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
  59 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
  60 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
  61 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
  62 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
  63
  64 <p><blockquote><pre>
  65 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
  66 </pre></blockquote><p>
  67
  68 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
  69
  70 <p><blockquote><pre>
  71 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
  72 </pre></blockquote><p>
  73
  74 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
  75 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
  76
  77 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
  78 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
  79 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
  80 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
  81 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
  82 Jessie is released.</p>
  83
  84 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
  85 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
  86 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
  87 line.</p>
  88
  89       </div>
  90       <div class="tags">
  91
  92
  93         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>.
  94
  95
  96       </div>
  97     </div>
  98     <div class="padding"></div>
  99
 100     <div class="entry">
 101       <div class="title">
 102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 103       </div>
 104       <div class="date">
 105         10th November 2014
 106       </div>
 107       <div class="body">
 108         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 109 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 110 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 111
 112 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 113 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 114 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 115 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 116 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 117 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 118 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 119 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 120 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 121 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 122 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 123 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 124 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 125 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 126 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 127
 128 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 129 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 130 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 131 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 132 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 133 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 134 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 135 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 136 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 137 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 138 were fairly easy, and
 139 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 140 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 141 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 142 useful approach.</p>
 143
 144 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 145 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 146 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 147 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 148 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 149 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 150 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 151 this:</p>
 152
 153 <p><blockquote><pre>
 154 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 155   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 156 </pre></blockquote></p>
 157
 158 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 159 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 160
 161 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 162 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 163 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 164 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 165 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 166 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 167 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 168 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 169 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 170 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 171 system.</p>
 172
 173 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 174 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 175 SMTorP. :)</p>
 176
 177       </div>
 178       <div class="tags">
 179
 180
 181         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 182
 183
 184       </div>
 185     </div>
 186     <div class="padding"></div>
 187
 188     <div class="entry">
 189       <div class="title">
 190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 191       </div>
 192       <div class="date">
 193         22nd October 2014
 194       </div>
 195       <div class="body">
 196         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 197 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 198 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 199 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 200 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 201 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 202 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 203 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 204 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 205 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 206 lists I recently took over:</p>
 207
 208 <p><blockquote><pre>
 209 % time listadmin xiph
 210 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 211 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 212
 213 real    0m1.709s
 214 user    0m0.232s
 215 sys     0m0.012s
 216 %
 217 </pre></blockquote></p>
 218
 219 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 220 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 221 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 222 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 223 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 224 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 225 program.</p>
 226
 227 <p>If you install
 228 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 229 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 230 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 231
 232 <p><blockquote><pre>
 233 username username@example.org
 234 spamlevel 23
 235 default discard
 236 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 237
 238 password secret
 239 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 240 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 241
 242 password hidden
 243 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 244 </pre></blockquote></p>
 245
 246 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 247 learn the details.</p>
 248
 249 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 250 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 251 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 252 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 253
 254 <p><blockquote><pre>
 255 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 256 </pre></blockquote></p>
 257
 258 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 259 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 260 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 261 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 262 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 263 email.</p>
 264
 265 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 266 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 267 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 268 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 269 software.</p>
 270
 271 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 272 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 273 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 274
 275 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 276 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 277 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 278 sure why.</p>
 279
 280       </div>
 281       <div class="tags">
 282
 283
 284         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>.
 285
 286
 287       </div>
 288     </div>
 289     <div class="padding"></div>
 290
 291     <div class="entry">
 292       <div class="title">
 293         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 294       </div>
 295       <div class="date">
 296         17th October 2014
 297       </div>
 298       <div class="body">
 299         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 300 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 301 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 302 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 303 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 304 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 305 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 306
 307 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 308 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 309 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 310 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 311 of this story.)</p>
 312
 313 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 314 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 315 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 316 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 317 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 318 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 319 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 320 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 321 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 322 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 323
 324 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 325 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 326 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 327 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 328
 329 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 330 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 331
 332 <p><blockquote><pre>
 333 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 334 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 335 </pre></blockquote></p>
 336
 337 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 338 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 339 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 340 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 341 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 342 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 343 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 344 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 345
 346 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 347 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 348
 349 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 350 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 351 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 352 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 353 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 354
 355 <p><blockquote><pre>
 356 Task: isenkram-packages
 357 Section: hardware
 358 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 359  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 360  proposed.
 361 Test-new-install: show show
 362 Relevance: 8
 363 Packages: for-current-hardware
 364
 365 Task: isenkram-firmware
 366 Section: hardware
 367 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 368  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 369  packages are proposed.
 370 Test-new-install: mark show
 371 Relevance: 8
 372 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 373 </pre></blockquote></p>
 374
 375 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 376 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 377 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 378 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 379 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 380
 381 <p><blockquote><pre>
 382 #!/bin/sh
 383 #
 384 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 385 export PATH
 386 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 387 </pre></blockquote></p>
 388
 389 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 390 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 391
 392 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 393 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 394 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 395 install.</p>
 396
 397 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 398 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 399 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 400
 401       </div>
 402       <div class="tags">
 403
 404
 405         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 406
 407
 408       </div>
 409     </div>
 410     <div class="padding"></div>
 411
 412     <div class="entry">
 413       <div class="title">
 414         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="date">
 417          4th October 2014
 418       </div>
 419       <div class="body">
 420         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 421 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 422 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 423 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 424
 425 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 426
 427 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 428 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 429 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 430
 431       </div>
 432       <div class="tags">
 433
 434
 435         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>.
 436
 437
 438       </div>
 439     </div>
 440     <div class="padding"></div>
 441
 442     <div class="entry">
 443       <div class="title">
 444         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 445       </div>
 446       <div class="date">
 447          4th October 2014
 448       </div>
 449       <div class="body">
 450         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 451 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 452 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 453 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 454 Dibb.</p>
 455
 456 <p>I just wrapped up
 457 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 458 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 459 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 460 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 461 0.17.</p>
 462
 463 <ul>
 464
 465  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 466  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 467    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 468  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 469  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 470  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 471  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 472  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 473  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 474    the palette size is the same.</li>
 475  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 476  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 477  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 478  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 479    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 480
 481 </ul>
 482
 483 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 484 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 485 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 486
 487       </div>
 488       <div class="tags">
 489
 490
 491         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 492
 493
 494       </div>
 495     </div>
 496     <div class="padding"></div>
 497
 498     <div class="entry">
 499       <div class="title">
 500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 501       </div>
 502       <div class="date">
 503         26th September 2014
 504       </div>
 505       <div class="body">
 506         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 507 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 508 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 509 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 510 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 511 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 512 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 513 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 514 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 515 future.  The
 516 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 517 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 518 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 519 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 520 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 521
 522 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 523 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 524 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 525 or rsync (use
 526 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 527 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 528 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 529 install with some tweaking.</p>
 530
 531 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 532 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 533
 534 <p><blockquote><pre>
 535 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 536 </pre></blockquote></p>
 537
 538 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 539 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 540 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 541 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 542
 543 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 544 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 545 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 546 your need.</p>
 547
 548 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 549 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 550 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 551 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 552 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 553 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 554 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 555 days.</p>
 556
 557 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 558 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 559 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 560 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 561 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 562 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 563 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 564 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 565 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 566
 567 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 568 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 569 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 570
 571       </div>
 572       <div class="tags">
 573
 574
 575         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>.
 576
 577
 578       </div>
 579     </div>
 580     <div class="padding"></div>
 581
 582     <div class="entry">
 583       <div class="title">
 584         <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>
 585       </div>
 586       <div class="date">
 587         25th September 2014
 588       </div>
 589       <div class="body">
 590         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 591 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 592 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 593 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 594 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 595 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 596 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 597 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 598 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 599 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 600 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 601 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 602 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 603
 604 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 605 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 606 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 607 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 608 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 609 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 610 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 611 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 612 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 613 list</a>. :)</p>
 614
 615       </div>
 616       <div class="tags">
 617
 618
 619         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 620
 621
 622       </div>
 623     </div>
 624     <div class="padding"></div>
 625
 626     <div class="entry">
 627       <div class="title">
 628         <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>
 629       </div>
 630       <div class="date">
 631         16th September 2014
 632       </div>
 633       <div class="body">
 634         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 635 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 636 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 637 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 638 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 639 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 640 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 641 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 642 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 643 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 644 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 645 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 646 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 647 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 648
 649 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 650 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 651 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 652 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 653 depend on the small and clever package
 654 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 655 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 656 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 657 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 658 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 659 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 660 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 661 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 662 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 663 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 664 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 665
 666 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 667 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 668 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 669 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 670 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 671 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 672 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 673 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 674 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 675 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 676 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 677 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 678 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 679 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 680 dialog.</p>
 681
 682 <p><table>
 683
 684 <tr>
 685 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 686 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 687 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 688 <th>Reduction</th>
 689 </tr>
 690
 691 <tr>
 692 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 693 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 694 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 695 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 696 </tr>
 697
 698 <tr>
 699 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 700 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 701 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 702 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 703 </tr>
 704
 705 <tr>
 706 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 707 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 708 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 709 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 710 </tr>
 711
 712 <tr>
 713 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 714 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 715 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 716 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 717 </tr>
 718
 719 <tr>
 720 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 721 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 722 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 723 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 724 </tr>
 725
 726 </table></p>
 727
 728 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 729 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 730 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 731 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 732 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 733 installed.</p>
 734
 735 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 736 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 737 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 738 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 739 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 740 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 741 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 742 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 743 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 744 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 745 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 746 for the entire installation.</p>
 747
 748 <p>I've implemented this in the
 749 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 750 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 751 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 752 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 753 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 754
 755 <p><blockquote><pre>
 756 #!/bin/sh
 757 set -e
 758 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 759 info() {
 760     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 761 }
 762 error() {
 763     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 764 }
 765 override_install() {
 766     apt-install eatmydata || true
 767     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 768         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 769             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 770             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 771             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 772                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 773                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 774                     > /target$file.edu
 775                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 776                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 777                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 778                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 779             else
 780                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 781             fi
 782         done
 783     else
 784         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 785     fi
 786 }
 787
 788 override_install
 789 </pre></blockquote></p>
 790
 791 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 792 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 793
 794 <p><blockquote><pre>
 795 #! /bin/sh -e
 796 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 797 error() {
 798     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 799 }
 800 remove_install_override() {
 801     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 802         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 803         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 804             rm /target$file
 805             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 806                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 807             rm /target$file.edu
 808         else
 809             error "Missing divert for $file."
 810         fi
 811     done
 812     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 813 }
 814
 815 remove_install_override
 816 </pre></blockquote></p>
 817
 818 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 819 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 820 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 821
 822 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 823 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 824 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 825 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 826 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 827 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 828 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 829 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 830 everyone.</p>
 831
 832 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 833 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 834 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
 835 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 836
 837 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 838 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 839 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 840 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 841 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 842
 843 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
 844 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
 845 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
 846 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
 847 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
 848
 849       </div>
 850       <div class="tags">
 851
 852
 853         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>.
 854
 855
 856       </div>
 857     </div>
 858     <div class="padding"></div>
 859
 860     <div class="entry">
 861       <div class="title">
 862         <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>
 863       </div>
 864       <div class="date">
 865         10th September 2014
 866       </div>
 867       <div class="body">
 868         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 869 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 870 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 871 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 872 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 873 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 874 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 875 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 876 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 877 those problems are gone now.</p>
 878
 879 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 880 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 881 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 882 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 883 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 884
 885 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 886 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 887 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 888
 889 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 890 line:</p>
 891
 892 <p><blockquote><pre>
 893 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 894 </pre></blockquote></p>
 895
 896 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 897 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 898 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 899 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 900
 901 <p><blockquote><pre>
 902 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 903 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 904 %
 905 </pre></blockquote></p>
 906
 907 <p>Now if only
 908 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 909 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 910 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 911 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 912 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 913 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 914 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 915 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 916 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 917
 918       </div>
 919       <div class="tags">
 920
 921
 922         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>.
 923
 924
 925       </div>
 926     </div>
 927     <div class="padding"></div>
 928
 929     <div class="entry">
 930       <div class="title">
 931         <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>
 932       </div>
 933       <div class="date">
 934         17th June 2014
 935       </div>
 936       <div class="body">
 937         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 938 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 939 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 940 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 941 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 942
 943 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 944 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 945 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 946 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 947 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 948 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 949 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 950 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 951 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 952 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 953 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 954 goals.</p>
 955
 956 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 957 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 958 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 959 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 960 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 961 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 962 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 963 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 964 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 965 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 966 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 967 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 968 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 969 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 970 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 971 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 972 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 973 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 974 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 975 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 976 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 977 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 978 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 979 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 980
 981 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 982 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 983 track the English original.  For this we use the
 984 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 985 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 986 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 987 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 988 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 989 files), which the translations update with the native language
 990 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 991 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 992 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 993 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 994 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 995 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 996 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 997 of the documentation.</p>
 998
 999 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1000 recommend using
1001 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1002 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1003 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1004 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1005 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1006 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1007 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1008 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1009
1010 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1011 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1012 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1013 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1014 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1015 translated images by storing translated versions in
1016 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1017 package maintainers know more.</p>
1018
1019 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1020 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1021 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1022 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1023 PDF version</a> or the
1024 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1025 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1026 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1027
1028 <p>To learn more, check out
1029 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1030 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1031 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1032 manual on the wiki</a> and
1033 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1034 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1035
1036       </div>
1037       <div class="tags">
1038
1039
1040         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>.
1041
1042
1043       </div>
1044     </div>
1045     <div class="padding"></div>
1046
1047     <div class="entry">
1048       <div class="title">
1049         <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>
1050       </div>
1051       <div class="date">
1052         23rd April 2014
1053       </div>
1054       <div class="body">
1055         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1056 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1057 So I implemented one, using
1058 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1059 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1060 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1061 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1062 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1063 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1064
1065 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1066 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1067 packages to install.  The first part is in
1068 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1069 this:</p>
1070
1071 <p><blockquote><pre>
1072 Task: isenkram
1073 Section: hardware
1074 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1075  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1076  proposed.
1077 Test-new-install: mark show
1078 Relevance: 8
1079 Packages: for-current-hardware
1080 </pre></blockquote></p>
1081
1082 <p>The second part is in
1083 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1084 this:</p>
1085
1086 <p><blockquote><pre>
1087 #!/bin/sh
1088 #
1089 (
1090     isenkram-lookup
1091     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1092 ) | sort -u
1093 </pre></blockquote></p>
1094
1095 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1096 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1097 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1098 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1099 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1100 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1101
1102 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1103 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1104 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1105 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1106 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1107 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1108 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1109 the python-apt code (bug
1110 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1111 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1112 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1113 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1114 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1115 unstable today.</p>
1116
1117 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1118 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1119 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1120 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1121 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1122 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1123 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1124 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1125 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1126
1127 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1128 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1129 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1130 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1131 package.  See also
1132 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1133 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1134 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1135 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1136
1137       </div>
1138       <div class="tags">
1139
1140
1141         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>.
1142
1143
1144       </div>
1145     </div>
1146     <div class="padding"></div>
1147
1148     <div class="entry">
1149       <div class="title">
1150         <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>
1151       </div>
1152       <div class="date">
1153         15th April 2014
1154       </div>
1155       <div class="body">
1156         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1157 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1158 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1159 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1160 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1161 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1162
1163 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1164 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1165 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1166 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1167 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1168 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1169 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1170
1171 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1172 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1173 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1174 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1175 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1176 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1177 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1178 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1179 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1180 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1181 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1182 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1183
1184 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1185 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1186 become root:</p>
1187
1188 <p><pre>
1189 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1190   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1191   u-boot-tools
1192 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1193   freedom-maker
1194 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1195 </pre></p>
1196
1197 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1198 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1199 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1200 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1201 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1202 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1203 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1204 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1205
1206 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1207 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1208 the preseed values:</p>
1209
1210 <p><pre>
1211 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1212 </pre></p>
1213
1214 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1215 it still work.</p>
1216
1217 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1218 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1219 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1220 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1221 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1222 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1223 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1224
1225 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1226 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1227 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1228 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1229 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1230 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1231
1232       </div>
1233       <div class="tags">
1234
1235
1236         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>.
1237
1238
1239       </div>
1240     </div>
1241     <div class="padding"></div>
1242
1243     <div class="entry">
1244       <div class="title">
1245         <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>
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="date">
1248          9th April 2014
1249       </div>
1250       <div class="body">
1251         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1252 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1253 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1254 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1255 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1256 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1257 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1258 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1259 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1260 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1261 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1262 have looked at a system called
1263 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1264 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1265
1266 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1267 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1268 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1269 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1270 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1271 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1272 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1273 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1274 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1275 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1276 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1277 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1278 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1279
1280 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1281 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1282 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1283 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1284 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1285 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1286 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1287 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1288 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1289 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1290 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1291 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1292 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1293 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1294 account.</p>
1295
1296 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1297 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1298 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1299 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1300 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1301 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1302 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1303
1304 <p><blockquote><pre>
1305 [s3c]
1306 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1307 backend-login: API-login
1308 backend-password: API-password
1309 fs-passphrase: local-password
1310 </pre></blockquote></p>
1311
1312 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1313 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1314 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1315 details and password to create it:</p>
1316
1317 <p><blockquote><pre>
1318 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1319 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1320   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1321 Enter backend login:
1322 Enter backend password:
1323 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1324 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1325 Enter encryption password:
1326 Confirm encryption password:
1327 Generating random encryption key...
1328 Creating metadata tables...
1329 Dumping metadata...
1330 ..objects..
1331 ..blocks..
1332 ..inodes..
1333 ..inode_blocks..
1334 ..symlink_targets..
1335 ..names..
1336 ..contents..
1337 ..ext_attributes..
1338 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1339 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1340 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1341
1342 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1343
1344 <p><blockquote><pre>
1345 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1346   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1347 Using 4 upload threads.
1348 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1349 Reading metadata...
1350 ..objects..
1351 ..blocks..
1352 ..inodes..
1353 ..inode_blocks..
1354 ..symlink_targets..
1355 ..names..
1356 ..contents..
1357 ..ext_attributes..
1358 Mounting filesystem...
1359 # df -h /s3ql
1360 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1361 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1362 #
1363 </pre></blockquote></p>
1364
1365 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1366 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1367 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1368 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1369 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1370 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1371
1372 <p><blockquote><pre>
1373 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1374 #
1375 </pre></blockquote></p>
1376
1377 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1378 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1379 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1380 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1381 file system:</p>
1382
1383 <p><blockquote><pre>
1384 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1385 Using cached metadata.
1386 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1387 Checking DB integrity...
1388 Creating temporary extra indices...
1389 Checking lost+found...
1390 Checking cached objects...
1391 Checking names (refcounts)...
1392 Checking contents (names)...
1393 Checking contents (inodes)...
1394 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1395 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1396 Checking objects (backend)...
1397 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1398 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1399 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1400 Checking objects (sizes)...
1401 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1402 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1403 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1404 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1405 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1406 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1407 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1408 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1409 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1410 Checking directory reachability...
1411 Checking unix conventions...
1412 Checking referential integrity...
1413 Dropping temporary indices...
1414 Backing up old metadata...
1415 Dumping metadata...
1416 ..objects..
1417 ..blocks..
1418 ..inodes..
1419 ..inode_blocks..
1420 ..symlink_targets..
1421 ..names..
1422 ..contents..
1423 ..ext_attributes..
1424 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1425 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1426 #
1427 </pre></blockquote></p>
1428
1429 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1430 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1431 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1432 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1433 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1434 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1435 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1436 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1437 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1438 working set.</p>
1439
1440 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1441 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1442 busy:</p>
1443
1444 <p><blockquote><pre>
1445 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1446   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1447 Using 8 upload threads.
1448 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1449 #
1450 </pre></blockquote></p>
1451
1452 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1453 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1454 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1455 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1456 s3qlctrl:
1457
1458 <p><blockquote><pre>
1459 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1460 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1461 #
1462 </pre></blockquote></p>
1463
1464 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1465 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1466 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1467 a report:</p>
1468
1469 <p><blockquote><pre>
1470 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1471 Directory entries:    9141
1472 Inodes:               9143
1473 Data blocks:          8851
1474 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1475 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1476 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1477 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1478 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1479 #
1480 </pre></blockquote></p>
1481
1482 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1483 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1484 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1485 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1486 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1487 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1488 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1489 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1490 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1491 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1492 best.</p>
1493
1494 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1495 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1496 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1497 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1498 poster is titled
1499 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1500 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1501 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1502 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1503 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1504
1505 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1506 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1507 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1508 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1509 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1510 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1511 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1512 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1513
1514 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1515 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1516 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1517 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1518 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1519 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1520 only read from it.</p>
1521
1522 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1523 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1524 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1525
1526       </div>
1527       <div class="tags">
1528
1529
1530         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>.
1531
1532
1533       </div>
1534     </div>
1535     <div class="padding"></div>
1536
1537     <div class="entry">
1538       <div class="title">
1539         <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>
1540       </div>
1541       <div class="date">
1542         14th March 2014
1543       </div>
1544       <div class="body">
1545         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1546 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1547 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1548 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1549 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1550 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1551 release (0.2).</p>
1552
1553 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1554 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1555 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1556 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1557 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1558 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1559 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1560 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1561 and build using
1562 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1563 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1564
1565 <pre>
1566 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1567   freedom-maker
1568 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1569   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1570   u-boot-tools
1571 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1572 </pre>
1573
1574 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1575 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1576 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1577 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1578 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1579 kpartx call.</p>
1580
1581 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1582 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1583 the preseed values:</p>
1584
1585 <pre>
1586 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1587 </pre>
1588
1589 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1590 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1591 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1592 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1593 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1594 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1595
1596 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1597 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1598 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1599 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1600 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1601 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1602
1603       </div>
1604       <div class="tags">
1605
1606
1607         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>.
1608
1609
1610       </div>
1611     </div>
1612     <div class="padding"></div>
1613
1614     <div class="entry">
1615       <div class="title">
1616         <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>
1617       </div>
1618       <div class="date">
1619         22nd February 2014
1620       </div>
1621       <div class="body">
1622         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1623 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1624 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1625 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1626 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1627 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1628 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1629 proper home since then.</p>
1630
1631 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1632 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1633 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1634 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1635 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1636
1637 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1638 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1639 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1640 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1641 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1642 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1643 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1644 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1645 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1646
1647       </div>
1648       <div class="tags">
1649
1650
1651         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>.
1652
1653
1654       </div>
1655     </div>
1656     <div class="padding"></div>
1657
1658     <div class="entry">
1659       <div class="title">
1660         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1661       </div>
1662       <div class="date">
1663          3rd February 2014
1664       </div>
1665       <div class="body">
1666         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1667 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1668 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1669 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1670 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1671 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1672 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1673 <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>,
1674 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1675
1676 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1677 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1678 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1679 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1680 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1681 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1682
1683 <p><blockquote><pre>
1684 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1685 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1686 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1687 dhclient /dev/eth0
1688 </pre></blockquote></p>
1689
1690 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1691 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1692 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1693
1694 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1695 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1696 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1697 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1698 side.</p>
1699
1700 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1701 stuff:</p>
1702
1703 <p><blockquote><pre>
1704 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1705 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1706 EOF
1707 apt-get update
1708 apt-get dist-upgrade
1709 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1710     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1711 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1712 </pre></blockquote></p>
1713
1714 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1715 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1716 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1717 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1718 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1719 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1720 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1721 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1722 ssh instead.
1723
1724 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1725 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1726 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1727 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1728 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1729 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1730
1731 <p><blockquote><pre>
1732 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1733 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1734 EOF
1735 </pre></blockquote></p>
1736
1737 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1738 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1739 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1740 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1741
1742 <p><blockquote><pre>
1743 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1744 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1745 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1746 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1747 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1748 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1749 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1750 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1751 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1752 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1753 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1754 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1755 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1756 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1757 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1758 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1759 #
1760 </pre></blockquote></p>
1761
1762 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1763 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1764 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1765 command line stuff.<p>
1766
1767       </div>
1768       <div class="tags">
1769
1770
1771         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>.
1772
1773
1774       </div>
1775     </div>
1776     <div class="padding"></div>
1777
1778     <div class="entry">
1779       <div class="title">
1780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1781       </div>
1782       <div class="date">
1783         14th January 2014
1784       </div>
1785       <div class="body">
1786         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1787 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1788 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1789 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1790 the source.  The company behind it provide
1791 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1792 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1793 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1794 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1795 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1796 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1797 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1798 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1799 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1800 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1801 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1802 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1803 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1804 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1805 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1806 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1807 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1808 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1809 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1810
1811 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1812
1813 <ul>
1814
1815   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1816   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1817   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1818
1819 </ul>
1820
1821 <p>You can
1822 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1823 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1824 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1825 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1826 include a test suite check.</p>
1827
1828       </div>
1829       <div class="tags">
1830
1831
1832         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>.
1833
1834
1835       </div>
1836     </div>
1837     <div class="padding"></div>
1838
1839     <div class="entry">
1840       <div class="title">
1841         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1842       </div>
1843       <div class="date">
1844         24th November 2013
1845       </div>
1846       <div class="body">
1847         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1848 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1849 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1850 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1851 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1852 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1853 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1854 is working on.  I checked the
1855 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1856 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1857 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1858 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1859 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1860 These are the release notes:</p>
1861
1862 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1863
1864 <ul>
1865
1866   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1867    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1868    up.</li>
1869
1870   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1871
1872   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1873    Matthias Klose.</li>
1874
1875   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1876    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1877
1878   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1879    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1880    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1881
1882 </ul>
1883
1884 <p>You can
1885 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1886 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1887 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1888 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1889 include a testsuite check.</p>
1890
1891       </div>
1892       <div class="tags">
1893
1894
1895         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>.
1896
1897
1898       </div>
1899     </div>
1900     <div class="padding"></div>
1901
1902     <div class="entry">
1903       <div class="title">
1904         <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>
1905       </div>
1906       <div class="date">
1907          2nd November 2013
1908       </div>
1909       <div class="body">
1910         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1911 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1912 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1913 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1914 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1915
1916 <p><pre>
1917 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1918 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1919 # Provides:          rsyslog
1920 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1921 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1922 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1923 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1924 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1925 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1926 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1927 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1928 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1929 ### END INIT INFO
1930 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1931 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1932 </pre></p>
1933
1934 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1935 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1936 info/comments.</p>
1937
1938 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1939 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1940
1941 <p><pre>
1942 #!/bin/sh
1943
1944 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1945 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1946 # and status_of_proc is working.
1947 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1948
1949 #
1950 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1951
1952 #
1953 do_start()
1954 {
1955         # Return
1956         #   0 if daemon has been started
1957         #   1 if daemon was already running
1958         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1959         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1960                 || return 1
1961         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1962                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1963                 || return 2
1964         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1965         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1966         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1967 }
1968
1969 #
1970 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1971 #
1972 do_stop()
1973 {
1974         # Return
1975         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1976         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1977         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1978         #   other if a failure occurred
1979         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1980         RETVAL="$?"
1981         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1982         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1983         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1984         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1985         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1986         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1987         # sleep for some time.
1988         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1989         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1990         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1991         rm -f $PIDFILE
1992         return "$RETVAL"
1993 }
1994
1995 #
1996 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1997 #
1998 do_reload() {
1999         #
2000         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2001         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2002         # then implement that here.
2003         #
2004         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2005         return 0
2006 }
2007
2008 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2009 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2010 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2011 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2012     script="$1"
2013     shift
2014     . $script
2015 else
2016     exit 0
2017 fi
2018
2019 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2020 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2021
2022 # Exit if the package is not installed
2023 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2024
2025 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2026 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2027
2028 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2029 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2030
2031 case "$1" in
2032   start)
2033         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2034         do_start
2035         case "$?" in
2036                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2037                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2038         esac
2039         ;;
2040   stop)
2041         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2042         do_stop
2043         case "$?" in
2044                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2045                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2046         esac
2047         ;;
2048   status)
2049         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2050         ;;
2051   #reload|force-reload)
2052         #
2053         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2054         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2055         #
2056         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2057         #do_reload
2058         #log_end_msg $?
2059         #;;
2060   restart|force-reload)
2061         #
2062         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2063         # 'force-reload' alias
2064         #
2065         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2066         do_stop
2067         case "$?" in
2068           0|1)
2069                 do_start
2070                 case "$?" in
2071                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2072                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2073                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2074                 esac
2075                 ;;
2076           *)
2077                 # Failed to stop
2078                 log_end_msg 1
2079                 ;;
2080         esac
2081         ;;
2082   *)
2083         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2084         exit 3
2085         ;;
2086 esac
2087
2088 :
2089 </pre></p>
2090
2091 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2092 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2093 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2094 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2095
2096 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2097 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2098 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2099 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2100 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2101
2102       </div>
2103       <div class="tags">
2104
2105
2106         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>.
2107
2108
2109       </div>
2110     </div>
2111     <div class="padding"></div>
2112
2113     <div class="entry">
2114       <div class="title">
2115         <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>
2116       </div>
2117       <div class="date">
2118          1st November 2013
2119       </div>
2120       <div class="body">
2121         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2122 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2123 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2124 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2125 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2126 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2127 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2128 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2129 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2130 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2131 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2132 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2133
2134 <p>The source is now available from
2135 <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>
2136
2137       </div>
2138       <div class="tags">
2139
2140
2141         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>.
2142
2143
2144       </div>
2145     </div>
2146     <div class="padding"></div>
2147
2148     <div class="entry">
2149       <div class="title">
2150         <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>
2151       </div>
2152       <div class="date">
2153         27th October 2013
2154       </div>
2155       <div class="body">
2156         <p>The
2157 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2158 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2159 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2160 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2161 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2162 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2163 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2164 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2165 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2166 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2167 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2168 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2169
2170 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2171 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2172 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2173 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2174 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2175 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2176 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2177 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2178 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2179 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2180 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2181 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2182 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2183 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2184 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2185 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2186 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2187 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2188 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2189 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2190 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2191 available from
2192 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2193 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2194
2195 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2196 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2197 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2198 list:</p>
2199
2200 <p><pre>
2201 #!/bin/sh
2202 set -e # Exit on first error
2203 rootdir="$1"
2204 cd "$rootdir"
2205 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2206 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2207 EOF
2208 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2209 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2210 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2211     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2212 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2213 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2214 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2215 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2216 </pre></p>
2217
2218 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2219 to build the image:</p>
2220
2221 <pre>
2222 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2223     --variant minbase \
2224     --arch armel \
2225     --distribution jessie \
2226     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2227     --image test.img \
2228     --size 600M \
2229     --bootsize 64M \
2230     --boottype vfat \
2231     --log-level debug \
2232     --verbose \
2233     --no-kernel \
2234     --no-extlinux \
2235     --root-password raspberry \
2236     --hostname raspberrypi \
2237     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2238     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2239     --package netbase \
2240     --package git-core \
2241     --package binutils \
2242     --package ca-certificates \
2243     --package wget \
2244     --package kmod
2245 </pre></p>
2246
2247 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2248 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2249 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2250 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2251 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2252 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2253 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2254
2255 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2256 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2257 build dependency list.</p>
2258
2259 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2260 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2261 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2262 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2263
2264       </div>
2265       <div class="tags">
2266
2267
2268         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>.
2269
2270
2271       </div>
2272     </div>
2273     <div class="padding"></div>
2274
2275     <div class="entry">
2276       <div class="title">
2277         <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>
2278       </div>
2279       <div class="date">
2280         15th October 2013
2281       </div>
2282       <div class="body">
2283         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2284 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2285 these. :)</p>
2286
2287 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2288 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2289 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2290 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2291 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2292 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2293 hope you will to. :)</p>
2294
2295 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2296 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2297 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2298 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2299 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2300
2301 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2302 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2303 statement under the heading
2304 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2305 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2306 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2307 too.</p>
2308
2309       </div>
2310       <div class="tags">
2311
2312
2313         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>.
2314
2315
2316       </div>
2317     </div>
2318     <div class="padding"></div>
2319
2320     <div class="entry">
2321       <div class="title">
2322         <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>
2323       </div>
2324       <div class="date">
2325         27th September 2013
2326       </div>
2327       <div class="body">
2328         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2329 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2330 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2331 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2332
2333 <ul>
2334
2335 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2336 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2337
2338 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2339 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2340
2341 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2342 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2343 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2344 (Youtube)</li>
2345
2346 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2347 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2348
2349 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2350 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2351
2352 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2353 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2354 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2355
2356 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2357 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2358 (Youtube)</li>
2359
2360 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2361 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2362
2363 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2364 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2365
2366 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2367 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2368 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2369
2370 </ul>
2371
2372 <p>A larger list is available from
2373 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2374 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2375
2376 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2377 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2378 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2379 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2380 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2381 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2382 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2383 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2384 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2385 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2386 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2387
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="tags">
2390
2391
2392         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>.
2393
2394
2395       </div>
2396     </div>
2397     <div class="padding"></div>
2398
2399     <div class="entry">
2400       <div class="title">
2401         <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>
2402       </div>
2403       <div class="date">
2404         10th September 2013
2405       </div>
2406       <div class="body">
2407         <p>I was introduced to the
2408 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2409 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2410 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2411 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2412 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2413 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2414 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2415 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2416
2417 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2418 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2419 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2420 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2421 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2422
2423 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2424 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2425 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2426 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2427 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2428 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2429 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2430 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2431 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2432 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2433 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2434 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2435 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2436 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2437 missing in Debian).</p>
2438
2439 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2440 scripts
2441 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2442 and a administrative web interface
2443 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2444 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2445 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2446 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2447 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2448 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2449 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2450 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2451 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2452 this is really working yet, see
2453 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2454 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2455 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2456 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2457 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2458 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2459 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2460
2461 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2462 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2463 at.</p>
2464
2465 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2466
2467 <ol>
2468
2469 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2470 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2471 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2472 to the Debian installer:<p>
2473 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2474
2475 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2476 install on.</li>
2477
2478 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2479 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2480
2481 </ol>
2482
2483 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2484
2485 <ol>
2486
2487 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2488 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2489 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2490 <pre>
2491 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2492 </pre></li>
2493 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2494 <pre>
2495 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2496    apt-key add -
2497 apt-get update
2498 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2499 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2500 </pre></li>
2501 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2502
2503 </ol>
2504
2505 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2506 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2507 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2508 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2509 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2510
2511 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2512 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2513 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2514 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2515
2516 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2517 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2518 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2519 irc.debian.org and the
2520 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2521 mailing list</a>.</p>
2522
2523 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2524 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2525 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2526 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2527 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2528 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2529
2530       </div>
2531       <div class="tags">
2532
2533
2534         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>.
2535
2536
2537       </div>
2538     </div>
2539     <div class="padding"></div>
2540
2541     <div class="entry">
2542       <div class="title">
2543         <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>
2544       </div>
2545       <div class="date">
2546         18th August 2013
2547       </div>
2548       <div class="body">
2549         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2550 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2551 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2552 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2553 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2554 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2555 currently on the disk.</p>
2556
2557 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2558 <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>
2559 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2560 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2561 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2562 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2563 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2564 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2565 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2566 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2567 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2568 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2569 the broken disks.</p>
2570
2571       </div>
2572       <div class="tags">
2573
2574
2575         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>.
2576
2577
2578       </div>
2579     </div>
2580     <div class="padding"></div>
2581
2582     <div class="entry">
2583       <div class="title">
2584         <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>
2585       </div>
2586       <div class="date">
2587         17th July 2013
2588       </div>
2589       <div class="body">
2590         <p>Today I switched to
2591 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2592 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2593 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2594 <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
2595 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2596 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2597 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2598 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2599 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2600 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2601 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2602 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2603 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2604 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2605 station from now on.</p>
2606
2607 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2608 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2609 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2610 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2611 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2612 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2613 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2614 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2615 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2616 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2617 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2618 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2619
2620 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2621 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2622 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2623 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2624 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2625 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2626 parameters are tuned:</p>
2627
2628 <ul>
2629
2630 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2631     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2632
2633 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2634     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2635     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2636
2637 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2638     systems.</li>
2639
2640 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2641     /etc/fstab.</li>
2642
2643 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2644
2645 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2646     cron.daily).</li>
2647
2648 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2649     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2650
2651 </ul>
2652
2653 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2654 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2655 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2656 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2657 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2658 from getting the data on the disk (see
2659 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2660 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2661 right thing to do.</p>
2662
2663 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2664 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2665 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2666
2667 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2668 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2669 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2670 instead of during my work.</p>
2671
2672 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2673 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2674
2675 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2676 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2677 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2678
2679 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2680 there.</p>
2681
2682 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2683 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2684 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2685 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2686 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2687 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2688 back.</p>
2689
2690       </div>
2691       <div class="tags">
2692
2693
2694         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>.
2695
2696
2697       </div>
2698     </div>
2699     <div class="padding"></div>
2700
2701     <div class="entry">
2702       <div class="title">
2703         <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>
2704       </div>
2705       <div class="date">
2706         10th July 2013
2707       </div>
2708       <div class="body">
2709         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2710 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2711 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2712 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2713 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2714 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2715 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2716 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2717
2718 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2719 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2720 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2721 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2722 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2723 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2724 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2725 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2726 lock up when I download a new
2727 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2728 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2729 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2730
2731 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2732 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2733 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2734 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2735 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2736 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2737
2738 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2739 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2740 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2741 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2742 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2743 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2744
2745 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2746 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2747 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2748 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2749 exist).</p>
2750
2751       </div>
2752       <div class="tags">
2753
2754
2755         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>.
2756
2757
2758       </div>
2759     </div>
2760     <div class="padding"></div>
2761
2762     <div class="entry">
2763       <div class="title">
2764         <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>
2765       </div>
2766       <div class="date">
2767          9th July 2013
2768       </div>
2769       <div class="body">
2770         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2771 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2772 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2773 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2774 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2775 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2776 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2777
2778 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2779 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2780 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2781 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2782 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2783
2784       </div>
2785       <div class="tags">
2786
2787
2788         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>.
2789
2790
2791       </div>
2792     </div>
2793     <div class="padding"></div>
2794
2795     <div class="entry">
2796       <div class="title">
2797         <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>
2798       </div>
2799       <div class="date">
2800          5th July 2013
2801       </div>
2802       <div class="body">
2803         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2804 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2805 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2806 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2807 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2808 ended up picking a
2809 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2810 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2811 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2812 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2813 on that below.</p>
2814
2815 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2816 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2817 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2818 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2819 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2820 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2821 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2822 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2823 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2824
2825 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2826 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2827 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2828 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2829 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2830 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2831 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2832
2833 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2834 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2835
2836 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2837 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2838 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2839 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2840 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2841 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2842 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2843 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2844 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2845 kernel developers as
2846 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2847 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2848 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2849 Lenovo forums, both for
2850 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2851 2012-11-10</a> and for
2852 <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
2853 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2854 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2855 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2856 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2857 There is even a
2858 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2859 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2860 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2861
2862 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2863 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2864 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2865 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2866 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2867 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2868 fixed. :)</p>
2869
2870       </div>
2871       <div class="tags">
2872
2873
2874         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>.
2875
2876
2877       </div>
2878     </div>
2879     <div class="padding"></div>
2880
2881     <div class="entry">
2882       <div class="title">
2883         <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>
2884       </div>
2885       <div class="date">
2886          4th July 2013
2887       </div>
2888       <div class="body">
2889         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2890 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2891 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2892 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2893 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2894 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2895 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2896 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2897 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2898
2899 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2900 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2901 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2902 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2903 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2904 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2905 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2906
2907 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2908 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2909 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2910 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2911 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2912 new laptop now. :)</p>
2913
2914 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2915
2916       </div>
2917       <div class="tags">
2918
2919
2920         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>.
2921
2922
2923       </div>
2924     </div>
2925     <div class="padding"></div>
2926
2927     <div class="entry">
2928       <div class="title">
2929         <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>
2930       </div>
2931       <div class="date">
2932         25th June 2013
2933       </div>
2934       <div class="body">
2935         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2936 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2937 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2938 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2939 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2940 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2941 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2942 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2943 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2944 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2945 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2946
2947 <p><pre>
2948 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2949 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2950 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2951 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2952 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2953 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2954 firmware-ipw2x00
2955 firmware-ipw2x00
2956 Preconfiguring packages ...
2957 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2958 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2959 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2960 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2961 #
2962 </pre></p>
2963
2964 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2965 printed instead:</p>
2966
2967 <p><pre>
2968 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2969 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2970 #
2971 </pre></p>
2972
2973 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2974 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2975
2976 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2977 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2978 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2979 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2980 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2981 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2982 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2983 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2984 machine.</p>
2985
2986 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2987 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2988 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2989 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2990 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2991 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2992
2993       </div>
2994       <div class="tags">
2995
2996
2997         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>.
2998
2999
3000       </div>
3001     </div>
3002     <div class="padding"></div>
3003
3004     <div class="entry">
3005       <div class="title">
3006         <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>
3007       </div>
3008       <div class="date">
3009         11th June 2013
3010       </div>
3011       <div class="body">
3012         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3013 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3014 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3015 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3016 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3017 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3018 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3019 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3020 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3021 i915 driver used by the
3022 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3023 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3024
3025 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3026 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3027 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3028 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3029 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3030
3031 <pre>
3032 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3033 update-initramfs -u -k all
3034 </pre>
3035
3036 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3037 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3038 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3039 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3040 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3041 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3042 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3043 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3044 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3045 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3046 number.</p>
3047
3048 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3049 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3050
3051 <p><pre>
3052 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3053     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3054     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3055  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3056  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3057     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3058  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3059     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3060  Latency: 0
3061  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3062  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3063  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3064  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3065  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3066  Capabilities: <access denied>
3067  Kernel driver in use: i915
3068 </pre></p>
3069
3070 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3071
3072 <p><pre>
3073 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3074        ...
3075         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3076         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3077        ...
3078 }
3079 </pre></p>
3080
3081 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3082 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3083 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3084 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3085 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3086 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3087 yet shown up in
3088 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3089 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3090 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3091 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3092 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3093 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3094
3095 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3096 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3097 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3098 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3099 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3100 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3101 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3102 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3103 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3104 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3105 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3106 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3107
3108 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3109 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3110 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3111 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3112 backlight.</p>
3113
3114       </div>
3115       <div class="tags">
3116
3117
3118         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>.
3119
3120
3121       </div>
3122     </div>
3123     <div class="padding"></div>
3124
3125     <div class="entry">
3126       <div class="title">
3127         <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>
3128       </div>
3129       <div class="date">
3130         27th May 2013
3131       </div>
3132       <div class="body">
3133         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3134 <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
3135 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3136 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3137 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3138 and Windows 8.</p>
3139
3140 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3141 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3142 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3143 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3144 enough to tell.</p>
3145
3146 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3147 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3148 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3149 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3150 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3151 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3152 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3153 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3154 to follow.</p>
3155
3156 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3157 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3158 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3159 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3160 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3161 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3162 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3163 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3164
3165 <p>I've updated the
3166 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3167 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3168 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3169 machine.</p>
3170
3171 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3172 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3173
3174       </div>
3175       <div class="tags">
3176
3177
3178         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>.
3179
3180
3181       </div>
3182     </div>
3183     <div class="padding"></div>
3184
3185     <div class="entry">
3186       <div class="title">
3187         <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>
3188       </div>
3189       <div class="date">
3190         25th May 2013
3191       </div>
3192       <div class="body">
3193         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3194 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3195 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3196 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3197 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3198 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3199
3200 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3201 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3202 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3203 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3204 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3205 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3206 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3207 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3208 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3209 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3210
3211 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3212 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3213 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3214 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3215 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3216 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3217
3218 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3219 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3220 on new Laptops?</p>
3221
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="tags">
3224
3225
3226         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>.
3227
3228
3229       </div>
3230     </div>
3231     <div class="padding"></div>
3232
3233     <div class="entry">
3234       <div class="title">
3235         <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>
3236       </div>
3237       <div class="date">
3238         17th May 2013
3239       </div>
3240       <div class="body">
3241         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3242 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3243 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3244 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3245 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3246 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3247 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3248 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3249 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3250 donate some money</a>.
3251
3252 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3253 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3254 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3255 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3256 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3257
3258 <p>The script,
3259 <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/>
3260 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3261 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3262 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3263
3264 <ol>
3265
3266 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3267 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3268 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3269     our configuration.</li>
3270 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3271     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3272     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3273     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3274 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3275     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3276 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3277
3278 </ol>
3279
3280 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3281 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3282 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3283 the needed packages.</p>
3284
3285 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3286 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3287 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3288 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3289 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3290 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3291
3292 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3293 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3294 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3295
3296 <p><pre>
3297 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3298 DESKTOP="lxde"
3299 </pre></p>
3300
3301 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3302 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3303 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3304 boot.</p>
3305
3306       </div>
3307       <div class="tags">
3308
3309
3310         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>.
3311
3312
3313       </div>
3314     </div>
3315     <div class="padding"></div>
3316
3317     <div class="entry">
3318       <div class="title">
3319         <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>
3320       </div>
3321       <div class="date">
3322         11th May 2013
3323       </div>
3324       <div class="body">
3325         <P>In January,
3326 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3327 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3328 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3329 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3330 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3331 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3332 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3333 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3334 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3335 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3336 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3337 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3338
3339 <p><table>
3340 <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>
3341 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3342 <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>
3343 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3344 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3345 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3346 <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>
3347 <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>
3348 <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>
3349 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3350 </table></p>
3351
3352 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3353 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3354 available in experimental.</p>
3355
3356 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3357 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3358 for LEGO designers.</p>
3359
3360       </div>
3361       <div class="tags">
3362
3363
3364         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>.
3365
3366
3367       </div>
3368     </div>
3369     <div class="padding"></div>
3370
3371     <div class="entry">
3372       <div class="title">
3373         <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>
3374       </div>
3375       <div class="date">
3376          5th May 2013
3377       </div>
3378       <div class="body">
3379         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3380 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3381 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3382 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3383 soon.</p>
3384
3385 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3386 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3387 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3388 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3389 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3390 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3391 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3392 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3393 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3394 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3395 Edu.</a>
3396
3397 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3398 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3399 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3400 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3401 follow.<p>
3402
3403       </div>
3404       <div class="tags">
3405
3406
3407         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>.
3408
3409
3410       </div>
3411     </div>
3412     <div class="padding"></div>
3413
3414     <div class="entry">
3415       <div class="title">
3416         <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>
3417       </div>
3418       <div class="date">
3419          3rd April 2013
3420       </div>
3421       <div class="body">
3422         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3423 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3424 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3425 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3426
3427 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3428 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3429 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3430 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3431 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3432 BTS. :)</p>
3433
3434       </div>
3435       <div class="tags">
3436
3437
3438         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3439
3440
3441       </div>
3442     </div>
3443     <div class="padding"></div>
3444
3445     <div class="entry">
3446       <div class="title">
3447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3448       </div>
3449       <div class="date">
3450          2nd February 2013
3451       </div>
3452       <div class="body">
3453         <p>My
3454 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3455 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3456 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3457 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3458 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3459 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3460 version too.</p>
3461
3462 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3463 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3464 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3465 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3466 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3467 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3468 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3469 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3470
3471 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3472 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3473 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3474 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3475 it. :)</p>
3476
3477 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3478 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3479 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3480
3481       </div>
3482       <div class="tags">
3483
3484
3485         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>.
3486
3487
3488       </div>
3489     </div>
3490     <div class="padding"></div>
3491
3492     <div class="entry">
3493       <div class="title">
3494         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3495       </div>
3496       <div class="date">
3497         22nd January 2013
3498       </div>
3499       <div class="body">
3500         <p>Yesterday, I
3501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3502 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3503 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3505 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3506 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3507 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3508 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3509 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3510 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3511 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3512 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3513 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3514
3515 <pre>
3516 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3517 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3518 </pre>
3519
3520 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3521 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3522 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3523 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3524
3525 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3526 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3527 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3528 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3529 word.</p>
3530
3531 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3532 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3533 process.</p>
3534
3535 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3536 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3537
3538       </div>
3539       <div class="tags">
3540
3541
3542         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>.
3543
3544
3545       </div>
3546     </div>
3547     <div class="padding"></div>
3548
3549     <div class="entry">
3550       <div class="title">
3551         <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>
3552       </div>
3553       <div class="date">
3554         21st January 2013
3555       </div>
3556       <div class="body">
3557         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3558 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3559 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3560 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3561 it, fetch the
3562 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3563 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3564 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3565 autostart script.</p>
3566
3567 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3568
3569 <ul>
3570
3571 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3572 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3573
3574 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3575 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3576 initially did.</li>
3577
3578 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3579 the APT database, a database
3580 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3581 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3582
3583 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3584 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3585 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3586 package or packages.</li>
3587
3588 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3589 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3590
3591 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3592 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3593
3594 </ul>
3595
3596 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3597 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3598 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3599 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3600
3601 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3602 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3603 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3604 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3605 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3606
3607 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3608 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3609 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3610 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3611 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3612 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3613 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3614 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3615
3616 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3617 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3618 '<tt>svn checkout
3619 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3620 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3621 devscripts package.</p>
3622
3623 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3624 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3625 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3627 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3628
3629       </div>
3630       <div class="tags">
3631
3632
3633         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>.
3634
3635
3636       </div>
3637     </div>
3638     <div class="padding"></div>
3639
3640     <div class="entry">
3641       <div class="title">
3642         <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>
3643       </div>
3644       <div class="date">
3645         19th January 2013
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="body">
3648         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3649 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3650 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3651 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3652 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3653 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3654 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3655 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3656 not a durable solution.
3657
3658 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3659 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3660
3661 <ul>
3662
3663 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3664   than A4).</li>
3665 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3666 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3667 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3668 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3669 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3670 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3671 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3672 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3673 size).</li>
3674 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3675   X.org packages.</li>
3676 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3677   the time).
3678
3679 </ul>
3680
3681 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3682 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3683 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3684 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3685 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3686 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3687 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3688 still be useful.</p>
3689
3690 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3691 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3692 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3693 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3694 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3695 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3696
3697       </div>
3698       <div class="tags">
3699
3700
3701         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>.
3702
3703
3704       </div>
3705     </div>
3706     <div class="padding"></div>
3707
3708     <div class="entry">
3709       <div class="title">
3710         <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>
3711       </div>
3712       <div class="date">
3713         18th January 2013
3714       </div>
3715       <div class="body">
3716         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3717 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3718 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3719 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3720 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3721 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3722 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3723
3724 <pre>
3725 #!/usr/bin/python
3726 import sys
3727 import apt
3728 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3729     cache = apt.Cache()
3730     cache.open(None)
3731     thepkgs = []
3732     for pkg in cache:
3733         version = pkg.candidate
3734         if version is None:
3735             version = pkg.installed
3736         if version is None:
3737             continue
3738         record = version.record
3739         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3740             continue
3741         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3742         for t in mime_types:
3743             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3744             if t == mimetype:
3745                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3746     return thepkgs
3747 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3748 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3749     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3750 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3751 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3752     print "  %s" %pkg
3753 </pre>
3754
3755 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3756
3757 <pre>
3758 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3759 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3760   gecko-mediaplayer
3761 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3762 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3763   browser-plugin-gnash
3764 %
3765 </pre>
3766
3767 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3768 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3769 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3770 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3771
3772 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3773 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3774 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3775 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3776 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3777 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3778
3779       </div>
3780       <div class="tags">
3781
3782
3783         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>.
3784
3785
3786       </div>
3787     </div>
3788     <div class="padding"></div>
3789
3790     <div class="entry">
3791       <div class="title">
3792         <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>
3793       </div>
3794       <div class="date">
3795         16th January 2013
3796       </div>
3797       <div class="body">
3798         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3799 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3800 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3801 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3802 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3803 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3804 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3805 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3806
3807 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3808 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3809 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3810 can be found on the
3811 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3812 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3813 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3814 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3815 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3816
3817 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3818
3819 <pre>
3820   count MIME type
3821   ----- -----------------------
3822      32 text/plain
3823      30 audio/mpeg
3824      29 image/png
3825      28 image/jpeg
3826      27 application/ogg
3827      26 audio/x-mp3
3828      25 image/tiff
3829      25 image/gif
3830      22 image/bmp
3831      22 audio/x-wav
3832      20 audio/x-flac
3833      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3834      18 video/x-ms-asf
3835      18 audio/x-musepack
3836      18 audio/x-mpeg
3837      18 application/x-ogg
3838      17 video/mpeg
3839      17 audio/x-scpls
3840      17 audio/ogg
3841      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3842 </pre>
3843
3844 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3845
3846 <pre>
3847   count MIME type
3848   ----- -----------------------
3849      33 text/plain
3850      32 image/png
3851      32 image/jpeg
3852      29 audio/mpeg
3853      27 image/gif
3854      26 image/tiff
3855      26 application/ogg
3856      25 audio/x-mp3
3857      22 image/bmp
3858      21 audio/x-wav
3859      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3860      19 audio/x-mpeg
3861      18 video/mpeg
3862      18 audio/x-scpls
3863      18 audio/x-flac
3864      18 application/x-ogg
3865      17 video/x-ms-asf
3866      17 text/html
3867      17 audio/x-musepack
3868      16 image/x-xbitmap
3869 </pre>
3870
3871 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3872
3873 <pre>
3874   count MIME type
3875   ----- -----------------------
3876      31 text/plain
3877      31 image/png
3878      31 image/jpeg
3879      29 audio/mpeg
3880      28 application/ogg
3881      27 image/gif
3882      26 image/tiff
3883      26 audio/x-mp3
3884      23 audio/x-wav
3885      22 image/bmp
3886      21 audio/x-flac
3887      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3888      19 audio/x-mpeg
3889      18 video/x-ms-asf
3890      18 video/mpeg
3891      18 audio/x-scpls
3892      18 application/x-ogg
3893      17 audio/x-musepack
3894      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3895      16 video/x-msvideo
3896 </pre>
3897
3898 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3899 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3900 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3901 issues.</p>
3902
3903 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3904 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3905
3906       </div>
3907       <div class="tags">
3908
3909
3910         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>.
3911
3912
3913       </div>
3914     </div>
3915     <div class="padding"></div>
3916
3917     <div class="entry">
3918       <div class="title">
3919         <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>
3920       </div>
3921       <div class="date">
3922         15th January 2013
3923       </div>
3924       <div class="body">
3925         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3926 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3927 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3928 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3929 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3930 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3931 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3932 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3933 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3934 packages.</p>
3935
3936 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3937 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3938 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3939 modalias.</p>
3940
3941 <p><blockquote>
3942 Package: package-name
3943 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3944 </blockquote></p>
3945
3946 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3947 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3948
3949 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3950 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3951
3952 <p><blockquote>
3953 Package: cheese
3954 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3955 </blockquote></p>
3956
3957 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3958 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3959
3960 <p><blockquote>
3961 Package: pcmciautils
3962 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3963 </blockquote></p>
3964
3965 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3966 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3967
3968 <p><blockquote>
3969 Package: colorhug-client
3970 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3971 </blockquote></p>
3972
3973 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3974 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3975 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3976
3977 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3978 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3979 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3980 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3981 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3982 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3983 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3984 Raring.</p>
3985
3986 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3987 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3988 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3989 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3990 try the
3991 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3992 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3993 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3994 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3995
3996 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3997 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3998
3999 <p><blockquote>
4000 % ./hw-support-lookup
4001 <br>yubikey-personalization
4002 <br>%
4003 </blockquote></p>
4004
4005 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4006 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4007
4008 <p><blockquote>
4009 % ./hw-support-lookup
4010 <br>pcmciautils
4011 <br>%
4012 </blockquote></p>
4013
4014 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4015 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4016 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4017
4018 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4019 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4020 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4021 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4022 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4023 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4024 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4025 see if it work.</p>
4026
4027 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4028 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4029 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4030 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4031
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="tags">
4034
4035
4036         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>.
4037
4038
4039       </div>
4040     </div>
4041     <div class="padding"></div>
4042
4043     <div class="entry">
4044       <div class="title">
4045         <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>
4046       </div>
4047       <div class="date">
4048         14th January 2013
4049       </div>
4050       <div class="body">
4051         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4052 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4053 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4054 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4055 in
4056 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4057 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4058
4059 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4060
4061 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4062 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4063 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4064 &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;,
4065 &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
4066 &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;.
4067
4068 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4069 this shell script:</p>
4070
4071 <pre>
4072 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4073 </pre>
4074
4075 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4076 using modinfo:</p>
4077
4078 <pre>
4079 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4080 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4081 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4082 %
4083 </pre>
4084
4085 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4086
4087 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4088 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4089
4090 <p><blockquote>
4091 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4092 </blockquote></p>
4093
4094 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4095
4096 <pre>
4097  v   00008086  (vendor)
4098  d   00002770  (device)
4099  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4100  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4101  bc  06        (bus class)
4102  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4103  i   00        (interface)
4104 </pre>
4105
4106 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4107 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4108 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4109 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4110
4111 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4112 means.</p>
4113
4114 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4115
4116 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4117 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4118
4119 <p><blockquote>
4120 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4121 </blockquote></p>
4122
4123 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4124
4125 <pre>
4126  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4127  p    0001  (device product)
4128  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4129  dc     09  (device class)
4130  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4131  dp     00  (device protocol)
4132  ic     09  (interface class)
4133  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4134  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4135 </pre>
4136
4137 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4138 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4139 these alias entries show up:</p>
4140
4141 <p><blockquote>
4142 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4143 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4144 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4145 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4146 </blockquote></p>
4147
4148 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4149 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4150 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4151
4152 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4153
4154 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4155 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4156
4157 <p><blockquote>
4158 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4159 </blockquote></p>
4160
4161 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4162
4163 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4164
4165 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4166 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4167 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4168
4169 <p><blockquote>
4170 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4171 </blockquote></p>
4172
4173 <p>The values present are</p>
4174
4175 <pre>
4176  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4177  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4178  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4179  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4180  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4181  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4182  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4183  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4184  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4185  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4186  ct   10             (chassis type)
4187  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4188 </pre>
4189
4190 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4191 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4192
4193 <pre>
4194   3 Desktop
4195   4 Low Profile Desktop
4196   5 Pizza Box
4197   6 Mini Tower
4198   7 Tower
4199   8 Portable
4200   9 Laptop
4201  10 Notebook
4202  11 Hand Held
4203  12 Docking Station
4204  13 All In One
4205  14 Sub Notebook
4206  15 Space-saving
4207  16 Lunch Box
4208  17 Main Server Chassis
4209  18 Expansion Chassis
4210  19 Sub Chassis
4211  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4212  21 Peripheral Chassis
4213  22 RAID Chassis
4214  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4215  24 Sealed-case PC
4216  25 Multi-system
4217  26 CompactPCI
4218  27 AdvancedTCA
4219  28 Blade
4220  29 Blade Enclosing
4221 </pre>
4222
4223 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4224 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4225 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4226
4227 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4228
4229 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4230 test machine:</p>
4231
4232 <p><blockquote>
4233 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4234 </blockquote></p>
4235
4236 <p>The values present are</p>
4237
4238 <pre>
4239   ty  01  (type)
4240   pr  00  (prototype)
4241   id  00  (id)
4242   ex  00  (extra)
4243 </pre>
4244
4245 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4246 the valid values are.</p>
4247
4248 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4249
4250 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4251 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4252 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4253 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4254 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4255 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4256 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4257
4258 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4259
4260 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4261 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4262
4263 <pre>
4264   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4265     echo "$id" ; \
4266     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4267   done
4268 </pre>
4269
4270 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4271 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4272
4273 <pre>
4274   acpi:ACPI0003:
4275     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4276   acpi:device:
4277   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4278   acpi:IBM0068:
4279     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4280     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4281     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4282     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4283   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4284     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4285     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4286     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4287   [...]
4288 </pre>
4289
4290 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4291 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4292 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4293 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4294
4295 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4296 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4297 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4298
4299       </div>
4300       <div class="tags">
4301
4302
4303         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>.
4304
4305
4306       </div>
4307     </div>
4308     <div class="padding"></div>
4309
4310     <div class="entry">
4311       <div class="title">
4312         <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>
4313       </div>
4314       <div class="date">
4315         10th January 2013
4316       </div>
4317       <div class="body">
4318         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4319 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4320 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4321 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4322 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4323 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4324 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4325 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4326 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4327 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4328 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4329 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4330 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4331 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4332 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4333 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4334 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4335 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4336
4337       </div>
4338       <div class="tags">
4339
4340
4341         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>.
4342
4343
4344       </div>
4345     </div>
4346     <div class="padding"></div>
4347
4348     <div class="entry">
4349       <div class="title">
4350         <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>
4351       </div>
4352       <div class="date">
4353          9th January 2013
4354       </div>
4355       <div class="body">
4356         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4357 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4358 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4359 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4360 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4361 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4362 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4363 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4364 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4365 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4366 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4367
4368 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4369 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4370 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4371 simple:
4372
4373 <ul>
4374
4375 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4376   starting when a user log in.</li>
4377
4378 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4379   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4380
4381 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4382   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4383   packages.</li>
4384
4385 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4386   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4387
4388 </ul>
4389
4390 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4391 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4392 discover database to find packages and
4393 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4394 packages.</p>
4395
4396 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4397 draft package is now checked into
4398 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4399 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4400 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4401 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4402 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4403 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4404 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4405 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4406 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4407 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4408 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4409 because of the freeze).</p>
4410
4411 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4412 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4413 inserted):</p>
4414
4415 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4416
4417 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4418 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4419 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4420
4421 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4422 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4423 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4424 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4425 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4426 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4427 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4428
4429 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4430 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4431 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4432 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4433 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4434 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4435 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4436 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4437 not be installed?</p>
4438
4439 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4440 please send me an email. :)</p>
4441
4442       </div>
4443       <div class="tags">
4444
4445
4446         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>.
4447
4448
4449       </div>
4450     </div>
4451     <div class="padding"></div>
4452
4453     <div class="entry">
4454       <div class="title">
4455         <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>
4456       </div>
4457       <div class="date">
4458          2nd January 2013
4459       </div>
4460       <div class="body">
4461         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4462 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4463 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4464 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4465 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4466 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4467 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4468 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4469 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4470 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4471
4472 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4473 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4474 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4475
4476       </div>
4477       <div class="tags">
4478
4479
4480         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>.
4481
4482
4483       </div>
4484     </div>
4485     <div class="padding"></div>
4486
4487     <div class="entry">
4488       <div class="title">
4489         <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>
4490       </div>
4491       <div class="date">
4492         25th December 2012
4493       </div>
4494       <div class="body">
4495         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4496 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4497
4498 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4499 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4500 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4501 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4502 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4503 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4504 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4505 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4506 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4507 name.</p>
4508
4509 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4510 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4511 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4512
4513 <blockquote><pre>
4514 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4515 cd bitcoin
4516 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4517 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4518 </pre></blockquote>
4519
4520 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4521 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4522 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4523 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4524 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4525 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4526 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4527 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4528 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4529
4530 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4531 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4532 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4533
4534       </div>
4535       <div class="tags">
4536
4537
4538         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>.
4539
4540
4541       </div>
4542     </div>
4543     <div class="padding"></div>
4544
4545     <div class="entry">
4546       <div class="title">
4547         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4548       </div>
4549       <div class="date">
4550         21st December 2012
4551       </div>
4552       <div class="body">
4553         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4554 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4555 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4556 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4557 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4558 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4559 is now maintained by a
4560 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4561 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4562 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4563 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4564 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4565 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4566 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4567 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4568 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4569 Corallo in a
4570 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4571 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4572 Debian package.</p>
4573
4574 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4575 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4576 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4577 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4578 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4579 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4580 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4581 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4582 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4583 new version to unstable.
4584
4585 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4586 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4587 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4588 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4589 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4590 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4591 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4592 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4593 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4594 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4595 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4596 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4597 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4598 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4599 have not tested them.</p>
4600
4601 <p>My
4602 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4603 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4604 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4605 years ago, as can be
4606 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4607 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4608 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4609 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4610 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4611 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4612 the same address as last time,
4613 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4614
4615       </div>
4616       <div class="tags">
4617
4618
4619         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>.
4620
4621
4622       </div>
4623     </div>
4624     <div class="padding"></div>
4625
4626     <div class="entry">
4627       <div class="title">
4628         <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>
4629       </div>
4630       <div class="date">
4631          7th September 2012
4632       </div>
4633       <div class="body">
4634         <p>As I
4635 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4636 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4637 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4638 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4639 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4640
4641 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4642 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4643 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4644 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4645
4646 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4647 PostScript formats at
4648 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4649 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4650
4651       </div>
4652       <div class="tags">
4653
4654
4655         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>.
4656
4657
4658       </div>
4659     </div>
4660     <div class="padding"></div>
4661
4662     <div class="entry">
4663       <div class="title">
4664         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4665       </div>
4666       <div class="date">
4667         16th August 2012
4668       </div>
4669       <div class="body">
4670         <p>I dag fyller
4671 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4672 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4673 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4674
4675       </div>
4676       <div class="tags">
4677
4678
4679         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>.
4680
4681
4682       </div>
4683     </div>
4684     <div class="padding"></div>
4685
4686     <div class="entry">
4687       <div class="title">
4688         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4689       </div>
4690       <div class="date">
4691         24th June 2012
4692       </div>
4693       <div class="body">
4694         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4695 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4696 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4697 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4698 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4699 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4700 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4701 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4702 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4703 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4704 missing in my book.</p>
4705
4706 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4707 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4708 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4709 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4710 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4711 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4712 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4713
4714       </div>
4715       <div class="tags">
4716
4717
4718         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>.
4719
4720
4721       </div>
4722     </div>
4723     <div class="padding"></div>
4724
4725     <div class="entry">
4726       <div class="title">
4727         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4728       </div>
4729       <div class="date">
4730         21st November 2011
4731       </div>
4732       <div class="body">
4733         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4734 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4735 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4736 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4737 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4738 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4739 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4740 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4741 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4742 the tools to do so.</p>
4743
4744 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4745 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4746 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4747 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4748
4749 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4750 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4751 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4752 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4753 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4754 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4755 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4756 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4757
4758 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4759 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4760 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4761
4762 <p><pre>
4763 #!/usr/bin/perl
4764 use strict;
4765 use warnings;
4766 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4767 BEGIN {
4768     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4769     my %rhelmodules = (
4770         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4771         );
4772     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4773         eval "use $module;";
4774         if ($@) {
4775             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4776             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4777             eval "use $module;";
4778         }
4779     }
4780 }
4781 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4782
4783 upgrade_dell();
4784
4785 exit 0;
4786
4787 sub run_firmware_script {
4788     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4789     unless ($script) {
4790         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4791         exit 1
4792     }
4793     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4794
4795     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4796         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4797     } else {
4798         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4799     }
4800 }
4801
4802 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4803     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4804     # Run firmware packages
4805     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4806         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4807         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4808         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4809             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4810             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4811         }
4812         closedir $dh;
4813     }
4814 }
4815
4816 sub download {
4817     my $url = shift;
4818     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4819     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4820 }
4821
4822 sub upgrade_dell {
4823     my @dirs;
4824     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4825     chomp $product;
4826
4827     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4828
4829         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4830         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4831
4832         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4833             CLEANUP => 1
4834             );
4835         chdir($tmpdir);
4836         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4837         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4838         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4839         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4840         my $fwopts = "-q";
4841         if (@paths) {
4842             for my $url (@paths) {
4843                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4844             }
4845             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4846         } else {
4847             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4848             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4849         }
4850         chdir('/');
4851     } else {
4852         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4853         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4854     }
4855 }
4856
4857 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4858     my $path = shift;
4859     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4860     download($url);
4861 }
4862
4863 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4864 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4865 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4866 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4867     my $filename = shift;
4868
4869     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4870     chomp $product;
4871     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4872
4873     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4874
4875     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4876     my @paths;
4877     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4878         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4879         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4880         my $oscode;
4881         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4882             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4883         } else {
4884             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4885         }
4886         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4887         {
4888             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4889         }
4890     }
4891     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4892         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4893
4894         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4895         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4896
4897         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4898         for my $path (@paths) {
4899             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4900                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4901             }
4902         }
4903     }
4904     return @paths;
4905 }
4906 </pre>
4907
4908 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4909 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4910 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4911 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4912 outdated.</p>
4913
4914       </div>
4915       <div class="tags">
4916
4917
4918         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>.
4919
4920
4921       </div>
4922     </div>
4923     <div class="padding"></div>
4924
4925     <div class="entry">
4926       <div class="title">
4927         <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>
4928       </div>
4929       <div class="date">
4930          4th August 2011
4931       </div>
4932       <div class="body">
4933         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4934 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4935 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4936 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4937 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4938 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4939 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4940 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4941 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4942
4943 <p><blockquote>
4944 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4945 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4946 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4947 </blockquote></p>
4948
4949 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4950 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4951 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4952 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4953 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4954 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4955 hard to explain.</p>
4956
4957 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4958 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4959 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4960 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4961 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4962 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4963 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4964 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4965 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4966 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4967 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4968 mode).</p>
4969
4970 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4971 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4972 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4973 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4974 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4975 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4976 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4977 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4978 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4979
4980 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4981 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4982 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4983 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4984 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4985 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4986 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4987 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4988
4989 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4990 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4991 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4992
4993       </div>
4994       <div class="tags">
4995
4996
4997         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>.
4998
4999
5000       </div>
5001     </div>
5002     <div class="padding"></div>
5003
5004     <div class="entry">
5005       <div class="title">
5006         <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>
5007       </div>
5008       <div class="date">
5009         30th July 2011
5010       </div>
5011       <div class="body">
5012         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5013 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5014 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5015 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5016 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5017 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5018 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5019 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5020 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5021 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5022 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5023 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5024 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5025
5026 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5027 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5028 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5029 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5030 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5031 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5032 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5033 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5034 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5035
5036 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5037 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5038 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5039 is presented.</p>
5040
5041 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5042 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5043 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5044 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5045 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5046 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5047 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5048 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5049 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5050 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5051 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5052 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5053 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5054 find time to push this forward.</p>
5055
5056       </div>
5057       <div class="tags">
5058
5059
5060         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>.
5061
5062
5063       </div>
5064     </div>
5065     <div class="padding"></div>
5066
5067     <div class="entry">
5068       <div class="title">
5069         <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>
5070       </div>
5071       <div class="date">
5072         29th July 2011
5073       </div>
5074       <div class="body">
5075         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5076 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5077 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5078 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5079 issues.</p>
5080
5081 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5082 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5083 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5084
5085 <ol>
5086
5087 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5088 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5089 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5090 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5091 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5092 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5093 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5094 Debian.</li>
5095
5096 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5097 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5098 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5099 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5100 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5101 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5102 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5103 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5104 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5105 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5106 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5107 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5108 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5109
5110 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5111 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5112 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5113 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5114 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5115 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5116 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5117 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5118 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5119 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5120
5121 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5122 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5123 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5124 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5125 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5126 latter behaviour.</li>
5127
5128 </ol>
5129
5130 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5131 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5132 it do not matter much.</p>
5133
5134 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5135 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5136 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5137
5138       </div>
5139       <div class="tags">
5140
5141
5142         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/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>.
5143
5144
5145       </div>
5146     </div>
5147     <div class="padding"></div>
5148
5149     <div class="entry">
5150       <div class="title">
5151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
5152       </div>
5153       <div class="date">
5154         26th July 2011
5155       </div>
5156       <div class="body">
5157         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5158 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5159 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5160 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5161 security support for a few years.</p>
5162
5163 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5164 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5165 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5166 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5167 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5168 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5169 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5170 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5171 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5172 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5173 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5174 easier in the future.</p>
5175
5176 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5177 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5178 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5179 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5180 do not have time for.</p>
5181
5182       </div>
5183       <div class="tags">
5184
5185
5186         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>.
5187
5188
5189       </div>
5190     </div>
5191     <div class="padding"></div>
5192
5193     <div class="entry">
5194       <div class="title">
5195         <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>
5196       </div>
5197       <div class="date">
5198          3rd April 2011
5199       </div>
5200       <div class="body">
5201         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5202 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5203 update in English.</p>
5204
5205 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5206 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5207 of the British service
5208 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5209 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5210 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5211 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5212 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5213 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5214 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5215 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5216 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5217 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5218 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5219 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5220 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5221
5222 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5223 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5224 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5225 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5226 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5227 public infrastructure.</p>
5228
5229 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5230 such service?</p>
5231
5232       </div>
5233       <div class="tags">
5234
5235
5236         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>.
5237
5238
5239       </div>
5240     </div>
5241     <div class="padding"></div>
5242
5243     <div class="entry">
5244       <div class="title">
5245         <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>
5246       </div>
5247       <div class="date">
5248         28th January 2011
5249       </div>
5250       <div class="body">
5251         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5252 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5253 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5254 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5255 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5256 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5257 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5258 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5259 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5260 out which security holes were present in our free software
5261 collection.</p>
5262
5263 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5264 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5265 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5266 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5267 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5268 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5269 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5270 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5271 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5272 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5273 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5274 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5275 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5276 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5277 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5278 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5279
5280 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5281 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5282 check out, one could look up
5283 <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
5284 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5285 The most recent one is
5286 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5287 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5288 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5289
5290 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5291 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5292 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5293 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5294 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5295 security issues out.</p>
5296
5297 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5298 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5299 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5300 RHEL is providing
5301 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5302 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5303 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5304
5305 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5306 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5307 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5308 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5309 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5310 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5311 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5312 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5313 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5314 established soon.</p>
5315
5316 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5317 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5318 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5319 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5320 for their packages.</p>
5321
5322       </div>
5323       <div class="tags">
5324
5325
5326         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>.
5327
5328
5329       </div>
5330     </div>
5331     <div class="padding"></div>
5332
5333     <div class="entry">
5334       <div class="title">
5335         <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>
5336       </div>
5337       <div class="date">
5338         23rd January 2011
5339       </div>
5340       <div class="body">
5341         <p>In the
5342 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5343 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5344 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5345 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5346 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5347 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5348 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5349 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5350 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5351 one of my machines like this:</p>
5352
5353 <pre>
5354 loaded modules:
5355 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5356 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5357 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5358 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5359 10de:03ec pata_amd
5360 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5361 1022:1103 k8temp
5362 109e:036e bttv
5363 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5364 11ab:4364 sky2
5365 </pre>
5366
5367 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5368 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5369
5370 <pre>
5371 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5372     echo loaded pci modules:
5373     (
5374         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5375         for address in * ; do
5376             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5377                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5378                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5379                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5380                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5381                     echo "$id $module"
5382                 fi
5383             fi
5384         done
5385     )
5386     echo
5387 fi
5388 </pre>
5389
5390 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5391 mappings:</p>
5392
5393 <pre>
5394 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5395     echo loaded usb modules:
5396     (
5397         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5398         for address in * ; do
5399             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5400                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5401                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5402                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5403                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5404                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5405                         echo "$id $module"
5406                     fi
5407                 fi
5408             fi
5409         done
5410     )
5411     echo
5412 fi
5413 </pre>
5414
5415 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5416 well.</p>
5417
5418       </div>
5419       <div class="tags">
5420
5421
5422         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>.
5423
5424
5425       </div>
5426     </div>
5427     <div class="padding"></div>
5428
5429     <div class="entry">
5430       <div class="title">
5431         <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>
5432       </div>
5433       <div class="date">
5434         22nd December 2010
5435       </div>
5436       <div class="body">
5437         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5438 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5439 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5440 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5441 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5442 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5443 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5444 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5445 university.</p>
5446
5447 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5448 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5449 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5450 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5451 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5452 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5453 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5454 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5455
5456 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5457 I perform on a new model.</p>
5458
5459 <ul>
5460
5461 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5462 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5463 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5464
5465 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5466 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5467
5468 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5469 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5470 reported by the program.</li>
5471
5472 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5473 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5474 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5475 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5476 normally test this by playing
5477 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5478 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5479
5480 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5481 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5482
5483 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5484 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5485
5486 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5487 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5488
5489 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5490 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5491 few.</li>
5492
5493 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5494 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5495 notice this.</li>
5496
5497 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5498 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5499 resume.</li>
5500
5501 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5502 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5503 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5504 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5505 not.</li>
5506
5507 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5508 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5509 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5510 existence.</li>
5511
5512 </ul>
5513
5514 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5515 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5516 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5517 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5518 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5519 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5520 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5521 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5522
5523       </div>
5524       <div class="tags">
5525
5526
5527         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>.
5528
5529
5530       </div>
5531     </div>
5532     <div class="padding"></div>
5533
5534     <div class="entry">
5535       <div class="title">
5536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5537       </div>
5538       <div class="date">
5539         11th December 2010
5540       </div>
5541       <div class="body">
5542         <p>As I continue to explore
5543 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5544 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5545 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5546
5547 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5548 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5549 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5550 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5551 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5552 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5553 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5554 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5555 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5556 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5557 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5558 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5559 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5560 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5561 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5562 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5563 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5564 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5565 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5566 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5567
5568 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5569 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5570 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5571 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5572 If the Skolelinux foundation
5573 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5574 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5575 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5576 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5577 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5578 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5579 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5580 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5581
5582 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5583 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5584 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5585 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5586 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5587 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5588 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5589 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5590 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5591 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5592 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5593 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5594 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5595 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5596 currencies.</p>
5597
5598 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5599 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5600 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5601 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5602 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5603 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5604 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5605 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5606 BitCoins.  Check out
5607 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5608 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5609 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5610 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5611 yet.</p>
5612
5613 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5614 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5615 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5616 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5617 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5618
5619       </div>
5620       <div class="tags">
5621
5622
5623         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>.
5624
5625
5626       </div>
5627     </div>
5628     <div class="padding"></div>
5629
5630     <div class="entry">
5631       <div class="title">
5632         <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>
5633       </div>
5634       <div class="date">
5635         10th December 2010
5636       </div>
5637       <div class="body">
5638         <p>With this weeks lawless
5639 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5640 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5641 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5642 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5643 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5644 A blog post from
5645 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5646 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5647 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5648 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5649 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5650 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5651 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5652
5653 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5654 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5655 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5656 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5657 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5658 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5659 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5660 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5662 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5663
5664 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5665 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5666 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5667 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5668 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5669 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5670 you can even get
5671 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5672 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5673 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5674 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5675
5676 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5677 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5678 donations to the address
5679 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5680
5681       </div>
5682       <div class="tags">
5683
5684
5685         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>.
5686
5687
5688       </div>
5689     </div>
5690     <div class="padding"></div>
5691
5692     <div class="entry">
5693       <div class="title">
5694         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5695       </div>
5696       <div class="date">
5697         27th November 2010
5698       </div>
5699       <div class="body">
5700         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5701 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5702 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5703 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5704 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5705 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5706 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5707 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5708
5709 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5710 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5711 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5712 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5713 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5714 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5715 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5716 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5717 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5718 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5719 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5720
5721 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5722 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5723 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5724 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5725 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5726 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5727 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5728 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5729 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5730 what is going on.</p>
5731
5732       </div>
5733       <div class="tags">
5734
5735
5736         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>.
5737
5738
5739       </div>
5740     </div>
5741     <div class="padding"></div>
5742
5743     <div class="entry">
5744       <div class="title">
5745         <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>
5746       </div>
5747       <div class="date">
5748         22nd November 2010
5749       </div>
5750       <div class="body">
5751         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5752 upgrade testing of the
5753 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5754 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5755 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5756 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5757
5758 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5759
5760 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5761
5762 <blockquote><p>
5763   apache2.2-bin
5764   aptdaemon
5765   baobab
5766   binfmt-support
5767   browser-plugin-gnash
5768   cheese-common
5769   cli-common
5770   cups-pk-helper
5771   dmz-cursor-theme
5772   empathy
5773   empathy-common
5774   freedesktop-sound-theme
5775   freeglut3
5776   gconf-defaults-service
5777   gdm-themes
5778   gedit-plugins
5779   geoclue
5780   geoclue-hostip
5781   geoclue-localnet
5782   geoclue-manual
5783   geoclue-yahoo
5784   gnash
5785   gnash-common
5786   gnome
5787   gnome-backgrounds
5788   gnome-cards-data
5789   gnome-codec-install
5790   gnome-core
5791   gnome-desktop-environment
5792   gnome-disk-utility
5793   gnome-screenshot
5794   gnome-search-tool
5795   gnome-session-canberra
5796   gnome-system-log
5797   gnome-themes-extras
5798   gnome-themes-more
5799   gnome-user-share
5800   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5801   gstreamer0.10-tools
5802   gtk2-engines
5803   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5804   gtk2-engines-smooth
5805   hamster-applet
5806   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5807   libapr1
5808   libaprutil1
5809   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5810   libaprutil1-ldap
5811   libart2.0-cil
5812   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5813   libboost-python1.42.0
5814   libboost-thread1.42.0
5815   libchamplain-0.4-0
5816   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5817   libcheese-gtk18
5818   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5819   libcryptui0
5820   libdiscid0
5821   libelf1
5822   libepc-1.0-2
5823   libepc-common
5824   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5825   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5826   libfreerdp0
5827   libgconf2.0-cil
5828   libgdata-common
5829   libgdata7
5830   libgdu-gtk0
5831   libgee2
5832   libgeoclue0
5833   libgexiv2-0
5834   libgif4
5835   libglade2.0-cil
5836   libglib2.0-cil
5837   libgmime2.4-cil
5838   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5839   libgnome2.24-cil
5840   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5841   libgpod-common
5842   libgpod4
5843   libgtk2.0-cil
5844   libgtkglext1
5845   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5846   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5847   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5848   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5849   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5850   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5851   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5852   libmono-security2.0-cil
5853   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5854   libmono-system2.0-cil
5855   libmtp8
5856   libmusicbrainz3-6
5857   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5858   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5859   libopal3.6.8
5860   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5861   libpt2.6.7
5862   libpython2.6
5863   librpm1
5864   librpmio1
5865   libsdl1.2debian
5866   libsrtp0
5867   libssh-4
5868   libtelepathy-farsight0
5869   libtelepathy-glib0
5870   libtidy-0.99-0
5871   media-player-info
5872   mesa-utils
5873   mono-2.0-gac
5874   mono-gac
5875   mono-runtime
5876   nautilus-sendto
5877   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5878   p7zip-full
5879   pkg-config
5880   python-aptdaemon
5881   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5882   python-axiom
5883   python-beautifulsoup
5884   python-bugbuddy
5885   python-clientform
5886   python-coherence
5887   python-configobj
5888   python-crypto
5889   python-cupshelpers
5890   python-elementtree
5891   python-epsilon
5892   python-evolution
5893   python-feedparser
5894   python-gdata
5895   python-gdbm
5896   python-gst0.10
5897   python-gtkglext1
5898   python-gtksourceview2
5899   python-httplib2
5900   python-louie
5901   python-mako
5902   python-markupsafe
5903   python-mechanize
5904   python-nevow
5905   python-notify
5906   python-opengl
5907   python-openssl
5908   python-pam
5909   python-pkg-resources
5910   python-pyasn1
5911   python-pysqlite2
5912   python-rdflib
5913   python-serial
5914   python-tagpy
5915   python-twisted-bin
5916   python-twisted-conch
5917   python-twisted-core
5918   python-twisted-web
5919   python-utidylib
5920   python-webkit
5921   python-xdg
5922   python-zope.interface
5923   remmina
5924   remmina-plugin-data
5925   remmina-plugin-rdp
5926   remmina-plugin-vnc
5927   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5928   rhythmbox-plugins
5929   rpm-common
5930   rpm2cpio
5931   seahorse-plugins
5932   shotwell
5933   software-center
5934   system-config-printer-udev
5935   telepathy-gabble
5936   telepathy-mission-control-5
5937   telepathy-salut
5938   tomboy
5939   totem
5940   totem-coherence
5941   totem-mozilla
5942   totem-plugins
5943   transmission-common
5944   xdg-user-dirs
5945   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5946   xserver-xephyr
5947 </p></blockquote>
5948
5949 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5950
5951 <blockquote><p>
5952   cheese
5953   ekiga
5954   eog
5955   epiphany-extensions
5956   evolution-exchange
5957   fast-user-switch-applet
5958   file-roller
5959   gcalctool
5960   gconf-editor
5961   gdm
5962   gedit
5963   gedit-common
5964   gnome-games
5965   gnome-games-data
5966   gnome-nettool
5967   gnome-system-tools
5968   gnome-themes
5969   gnuchess
5970   gucharmap
5971   guile-1.8-libs
5972   libavahi-ui0
5973   libdmx1
5974   libgalago3
5975   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5976   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5977   liblircclient0
5978   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5979   libspeexdsp1
5980   libsvga1
5981   rhythmbox
5982   seahorse
5983   sound-juicer
5984   system-config-printer
5985   totem-common
5986   transmission-gtk
5987   vinagre
5988   vino
5989 </p></blockquote>
5990
5991 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5992
5993 <blockquote><p>
5994   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5995 </p></blockquote>
5996
5997 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5998
5999 <blockquote><p>
6000 [nothing]
6001 </p></blockquote>
6002
6003 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6004
6005 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6006
6007 <blockquote><p>
6008   ksmserver
6009 </p></blockquote>
6010
6011 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6012
6013 <blockquote><p>
6014   kwin
6015   network-manager-kde
6016 </p></blockquote>
6017
6018 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6019
6020 <blockquote><p>
6021   arts
6022   dolphin
6023   freespacenotifier
6024   google-gadgets-gst
6025   google-gadgets-xul
6026   kappfinder
6027   kcalc
6028   kcharselect
6029   kde-core
6030   kde-plasma-desktop
6031   kde-standard
6032   kde-window-manager
6033   kdeartwork
6034   kdeartwork-emoticons
6035   kdeartwork-style
6036   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6037   kdebase
6038   kdebase-apps
6039   kdebase-workspace
6040   kdebase-workspace-bin
6041   kdebase-workspace-data
6042   kdeeject
6043   kdelibs
6044   kdeplasma-addons
6045   kdeutils
6046   kdewallpapers
6047   kdf
6048   kfloppy
6049   kgpg
6050   khelpcenter4
6051   kinfocenter
6052   konq-plugins-l10n
6053   konqueror-nsplugins
6054   kscreensaver
6055   kscreensaver-xsavers
6056   ktimer
6057   kwrite
6058   libgle3
6059   libkde4-ruby1.8
6060   libkonq5
6061   libkonq5-templates
6062   libnetpbm10
6063   libplasma-ruby
6064   libplasma-ruby1.8
6065   libqt4-ruby1.8
6066   marble-data
6067   marble-plugins
6068   netpbm
6069   nuvola-icon-theme
6070   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6071   plasma-desktop
6072   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6073   plasma-runners-addons
6074   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6075   plasma-scriptengine-python
6076   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6077   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6078   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6079   plasma-scriptengines
6080   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6081   plasma-widget-folderview
6082   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6083   ruby
6084   sweeper
6085   update-notifier-kde
6086   xscreensaver-data-extra
6087   xscreensaver-gl
6088   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6089   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6090 </p></blockquote>
6091
6092 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6093
6094 <blockquote><p>
6095   ark
6096   google-gadgets-common
6097   google-gadgets-qt
6098   htdig
6099   kate
6100   kdebase-bin
6101   kdebase-data
6102   kdepasswd
6103   kfind
6104   klipper
6105   konq-plugins
6106   konqueror
6107   ksysguard
6108   ksysguardd
6109   libarchive1
6110   libcln6
6111   libeet1
6112   libeina-svn-06
6113   libggadget-1.0-0b
6114   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6115   libgps19
6116   libkdecorations4
6117   libkephal4
6118   libkonq4
6119   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6120   libkscreensaver5
6121   libksgrd4
6122   libksignalplotter4
6123   libkunitconversion4
6124   libkwineffects1a
6125   libmarblewidget4
6126   libntrack-qt4-1
6127   libntrack0
6128   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6129   libplasmaclock4a
6130   libplasmagenericshell4
6131   libprocesscore4a
6132   libprocessui4a
6133   libqalculate5
6134   libqedje0a
6135   libqtruby4shared2
6136   libqzion0a
6137   libruby1.8
6138   libscim8c2a
6139   libsmokekdecore4-3
6140   libsmokekdeui4-3
6141   libsmokekfile3
6142   libsmokekhtml3
6143   libsmokekio3
6144   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6145   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6146   libsmokekparts3
6147   libsmokektexteditor3
6148   libsmokekutils3
6149   libsmokenepomuk3
6150   libsmokephonon3
6151   libsmokeplasma3
6152   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6153   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6154   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6155   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6156   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6157   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6158   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6159   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6160   libsmokeqttest4-3
6161   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6162   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6163   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6164   libsmokesolid3
6165   libsmokesoprano3
6166   libtaskmanager4a
6167   libtidy-0.99-0
6168   libweather-ion4a
6169   libxklavier16
6170   libxxf86misc1
6171   okteta
6172   oxygencursors
6173   plasma-dataengines-addons
6174   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6175   plasma-widget-lancelot
6176   plasma-widgets-addons
6177   plasma-widgets-workspace
6178   polkit-kde-1
6179   ruby1.8
6180   systemsettings
6181   update-notifier-common
6182 </p></blockquote>
6183
6184 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6185 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6186 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6187 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6188
6189       </div>
6190       <div class="tags">
6191
6192
6193         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>.
6194
6195
6196       </div>
6197     </div>
6198     <div class="padding"></div>
6199
6200     <div class="entry">
6201       <div class="title">
6202         <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>
6203       </div>
6204       <div class="date">
6205         22nd November 2010
6206       </div>
6207       <div class="body">
6208         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6209 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6210 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6211 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6212 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6213 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6214 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6215 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6216 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6217
6218 <p>I found
6219 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6220 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6221 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6222 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6223 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6224 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6225
6226 <pre>
6227 #!/bin/sh
6228
6229 # Based on
6230 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6231
6232 set -e
6233 set -x
6234
6235 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6236     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6237     exit 1
6238 else
6239     host="$1"
6240 fi
6241
6242 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6243     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6244     exit 1
6245 fi
6246
6247 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6248 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6249 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6250 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6251
6252 img=$host.img
6253 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6254 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6255
6256 parted $img mklabel msdos
6257 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6258 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6259 parted $img set 1 boot on
6260
6261 modprobe dm-mod
6262 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6263 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6264
6265 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6266 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6267 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6268
6269 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6270 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6271 </pre>
6272
6273 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6274 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6275
6276 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6277 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6278 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6279 seem to work just fine.</p>
6280
6281       </div>
6282       <div class="tags">
6283
6284
6285         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>.
6286
6287
6288       </div>
6289     </div>
6290     <div class="padding"></div>
6291
6292     <div class="entry">
6293       <div class="title">
6294         <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>
6295       </div>
6296       <div class="date">
6297         20th November 2010
6298       </div>
6299       <div class="body">
6300         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6301 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6302 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6303 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6304
6305 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6306 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6307 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6308
6309 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6310
6311 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6312
6313 <blockquote><p>
6314   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6315   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6316   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6317   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6318   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6319   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6320   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6321   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6322   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6323   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6324   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6325   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6326   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6327   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6328   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6329   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6330   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6331   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6332   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6333   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6334   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6335   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6336   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6337   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6338   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6339   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6340   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6341   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6342   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6343   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6344   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6345   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6346   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6347   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6348   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6349   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6350   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6351   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6352   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6353   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6354   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6355   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6356   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6357   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6358   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6359   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6360   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6361   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6362   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6363   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6364   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6365   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6366   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6367   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6368   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6369   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6370   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6371   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6372   zip
6373 </p></blockquote>
6374
6375 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6376
6377 <blockquote><p>
6378   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6379   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6380   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6381   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6382   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6383   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6384   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6385   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6386   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6387   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6388   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6389   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6390   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6391   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6392   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6393   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6394   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6395   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6396   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6397   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6398   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6399   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6400   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6401   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6402   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6403   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6404   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6405   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6406   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6407 </p></blockquote>
6408
6409 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6410
6411 <blockquote><p>
6412   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6413 </p></blockquote>
6414
6415 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6416
6417 <blockquote><p>
6418 [nothing]
6419 </p></blockquote>
6420
6421 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6422
6423 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6424
6425 <blockquote><p>
6426   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6427   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6428   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6429   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6430   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6431   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6432   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6433   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6434   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6435   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6436   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6437   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6438   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6439   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6440   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6441   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6442   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6443   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6444   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6445   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6446   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6447   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6448   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6449   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6450   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6451   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6452   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6453   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6454   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6455   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6456 </p></blockquote>
6457
6458 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6459
6460 <blockquote><p>
6461   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6462   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6463   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6464   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6465   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6466   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6467   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6468   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6469   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6470   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6471   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6472   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6473   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6474   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6475   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6476   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6477   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6478   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6479   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6480   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6481   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6482   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6483   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6484   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6485   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6486   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6487   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6488   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6489   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6490   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6491   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6492   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6493   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6494 </p></blockquote>
6495
6496 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6497
6498 <blockquote><p>
6499   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6500   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6501   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6502   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6503   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6504   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6505   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6506 </p></blockquote>
6507
6508 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6509
6510 <blockquote><p>
6511   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6512 </p></blockquote>
6513
6514       </div>
6515       <div class="tags">
6516
6517
6518         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>.
6519
6520
6521       </div>
6522     </div>
6523     <div class="padding"></div>
6524
6525     <div class="entry">
6526       <div class="title">
6527         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6528       </div>
6529       <div class="date">
6530         20th November 2010
6531       </div>
6532       <div class="body">
6533         <p>Answering
6534 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6535 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6536 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6537 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6538 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6539 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6540 releases out more often.</p>
6541
6542 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6543 I have considered setting up a <a
6544 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6545 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6546 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6547 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6548 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6549 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6550 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6551 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6552 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6553 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6554 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6555 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6556
6557       </div>
6558       <div class="tags">
6559
6560
6561         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>.
6562
6563
6564       </div>
6565     </div>
6566     <div class="padding"></div>
6567
6568     <div class="entry">
6569       <div class="title">
6570         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6571       </div>
6572       <div class="date">
6573          9th November 2010
6574       </div>
6575       <div class="body">
6576         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6577
6578 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6579 3D linked in from
6580 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6581 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6582
6583       </div>
6584       <div class="tags">
6585
6586
6587         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>.
6588
6589
6590       </div>
6591     </div>
6592     <div class="padding"></div>
6593
6594     <div class="entry">
6595       <div class="title">
6596         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6597       </div>
6598       <div class="date">
6599         24th October 2010
6600       </div>
6601       <div class="body">
6602         <p>Some updates.</p>
6603
6604 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6605 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6606 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6607 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6608 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6609 :)</p>
6610
6611 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6612 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6613 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6614 It is called
6615 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6616 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6617 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6618 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6619 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6620 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6621
6622 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6623 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6624 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6625 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6626 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6627 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6628 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6629 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6630 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6631 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6632
6633       </div>
6634       <div class="tags">
6635
6636
6637         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>.
6638
6639
6640       </div>
6641     </div>
6642     <div class="padding"></div>
6643
6644     <div class="entry">
6645       <div class="title">
6646         <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>
6647       </div>
6648       <div class="date">
6649          4th September 2010
6650       </div>
6651       <div class="body">
6652         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6653 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6654 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6655 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6656 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6657 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6658 installed.</p>
6659
6660 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6661 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6662 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6663 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6664 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6665 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6666 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6667 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6668 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6669
6670 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6671 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6672 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6673 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6674 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6675 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6676 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6677 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6678 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6679 pages they want to visit.</p>
6680
6681 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6682 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6683 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6684 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6685 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6686 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6687 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6688 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6689 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6690 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6691 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6692
6693       </div>
6694       <div class="tags">
6695
6696
6697         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>.
6698
6699
6700       </div>
6701     </div>
6702     <div class="padding"></div>
6703
6704     <div class="entry">
6705       <div class="title">
6706         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6707       </div>
6708       <div class="date">
6709         27th July 2010
6710       </div>
6711       <div class="body">
6712         <p>I discovered this while doing
6713 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6714 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6715 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6716 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6717 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6718
6719 <p>An example is from todays
6720 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6721 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6722 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6723 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6724 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6725 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6726 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6727
6728 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6729
6730 <blockquote><pre>
6731 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6732  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6733   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6734 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6735  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6736 </pre></blockquote>
6737
6738 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6739 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6740 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6741 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6742 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6743 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6744 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6745 of dependency loops.</p>
6746
6747 <p>Thanks to
6748 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6749 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6750 dependencies
6751 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6752 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6753
6754 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6755 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6756 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6757 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6758 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6759 it.</p>
6760
6761       </div>
6762       <div class="tags">
6763
6764
6765         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>.
6766
6767
6768       </div>
6769     </div>
6770     <div class="padding"></div>
6771
6772     <div class="entry">
6773       <div class="title">
6774         <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>
6775       </div>
6776       <div class="date">
6777         17th July 2010
6778       </div>
6779       <div class="body">
6780         <p>This is a
6781 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6782 on my
6783 <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
6784 work</a> on
6785 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6786 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6787
6788 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6789 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6790 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6791 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6792
6793 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6794 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6795 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6796
6797 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6798
6799 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6800 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6801 the web.
6802
6803 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6804 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6805 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6806 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6807 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6808 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6809
6810 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6811 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6812 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6813 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6814 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6815 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6816 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6817 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6818 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6819 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6820 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6821 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6822 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6823 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6824 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6825 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6826
6827 <blockquote><pre>
6828 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6829   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6830   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6831   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6832   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6833   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6834   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6835
6836 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6837   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6838   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6839   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6840   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6841   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6842 </pre></blockquote>
6843
6844 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6845 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6846 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6847 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6848 also exist.</p>
6849
6850 <blockquote><pre>
6851 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6852 objectclass: top
6853 objectclass: dnsdomain
6854 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6855 dc: tjener
6856 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6857 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6858
6859 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6860 objectclass: top
6861 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6862 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6863 dc: 2
6864 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6865 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6866 </pre></blockquote>
6867
6868 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6869 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6870 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6871 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6872 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6873 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6874 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6875 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6876 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6877 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6878 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6879 instead.</p>
6880
6881 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6882 like this:</p>
6883
6884 <blockquote><pre>
6885 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6886   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6887   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6888   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6889   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6890   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6891
6892 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6893   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6894 </pre></blockquote>
6895
6896 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6897 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6898 reverse lookups.</p>
6899
6900 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6901 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6902 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6903 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6904
6905 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6906 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6907 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6908
6909 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6910 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6911 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6912 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6913 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6914
6915 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6916 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6917 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6918 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6919 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6920
6921 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6922 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6923 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6924 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6925 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6926 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6927
6928 <blockquote><pre>
6929 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6930     SUP top
6931     AUXILIARY
6932     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6933           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6934           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6935           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6936           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6937     ))
6938 </pre></blockquote>
6939
6940 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6941 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6942 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6943 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6944 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6945 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6946
6947 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6948
6949 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6950 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6951 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6952 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6953 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6954
6955 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6956 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6957 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6958 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6959
6960 <blockquote><pre>
6961 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6962 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6963 </pre></blockquote>
6964
6965 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6966 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6967 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6968 search result is this entry:</p>
6969
6970 <blockquote><pre>
6971 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6972 cn: dhcp
6973 objectClass: top
6974 objectClass: dhcpServer
6975 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6976 </pre></blockquote>
6977
6978 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6979 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6980 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6981 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6982 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6983 The search result is this entry:</p>
6984
6985 <blockquote><pre>
6986 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6987 cn: DHCP Config
6988 objectClass: top
6989 objectClass: dhcpService
6990 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6991 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6992 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6993 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6994 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6995 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6996 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6997 </pre></blockquote>
6998
6999 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7000 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7001 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7002 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7003 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7004 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7005 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7006 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7007 related computer objects.</p>
7008
7009 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7010 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7011 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7012 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7013 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7014 like:</p>
7015
7016 <blockquote><pre>
7017 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7018 cn: hostname
7019 objectClass: top
7020 objectClass: dhcpHost
7021 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7022 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7023 </pre></blockquote>
7024
7025 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7026 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7027 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7028 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7029 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7030 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7031 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7032 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7033 structural object class.
7034
7035 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7036
7037 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7038 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7039 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7040 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7041 in the configuration.</p>
7042
7043 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7044 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7045 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7046 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7047 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7048 structure.</p>
7049
7050 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7051 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7052
7053 <blockquote><pre>
7054 ou=services
7055   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7056     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7057     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7058       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7059         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7060     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7061       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7062         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7063     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7064       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7065 </pre></blockquote>
7066
7067 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7068 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7069 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7070 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7071
7072 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7073 like this:</p>
7074
7075 <blockquote><pre>
7076 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7077 dc: hostname
7078 objectClass: top
7079 objectClass: dhcpHost
7080 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7081 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7082 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7083 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7084 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7085 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7086 </pre></blockquote>
7087
7088 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7089 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7090 auxiliary object class.</p>
7091
7092       </div>
7093       <div class="tags">
7094
7095
7096         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>.
7097
7098
7099       </div>
7100     </div>
7101     <div class="padding"></div>
7102
7103     <div class="entry">
7104       <div class="title">
7105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7106       </div>
7107       <div class="date">
7108         14th July 2010
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="body">
7111         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7112 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7113 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7114 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7115 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7116
7117 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7118 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7119
7120 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7121 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7122 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7123 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7124 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7125 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7126
7127 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7128 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7129 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7130 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7131 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7132 seem to work.</p>
7133
7134 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7135 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7136 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7137 this:</p>
7138
7139 <blockquote><pre>
7140   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7141   cn: hostname
7142   objectClass: dhcphost
7143   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7144   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7145   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7146   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7147   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7148   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7149   ldapconfigsound: Y
7150 </pre></blockquote>
7151
7152 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7153 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7154 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7155 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7156
7157 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7158 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7159 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7160 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7161 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7162 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7163 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7164 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7165
7166 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7167 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7168
7169       </div>
7170       <div class="tags">
7171
7172
7173         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>.
7174
7175
7176       </div>
7177     </div>
7178     <div class="padding"></div>
7179
7180     <div class="entry">
7181       <div class="title">
7182         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7183       </div>
7184       <div class="date">
7185         11th July 2010
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="body">
7188         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7189 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7190 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7191 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7192
7193 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7194 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7195 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7196 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7197 LTSP clients.</p>
7198
7199 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7200 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7201 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7202
7203 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7204 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7205 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7206
7207 <blockquote><pre>
7208 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7209 #
7210 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7211 #
7212 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7213 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7214 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7215 #
7216 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7217 # existence of attribute names.
7218 #
7219 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7220 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7221 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7222 #
7223 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7224 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7225 #
7226 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7227 #     SUP top
7228 #     AUXILIARY
7229 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7230
7231 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7232 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7233     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7234     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7235         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7236         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7237             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7238             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7239             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7240             # bass value on to clients
7241             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7242         done
7243     done
7244 fi
7245 </pre></blockquote>
7246
7247 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7248 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7249 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7250 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7251 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7252
7253 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7254 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7255
7256 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7257 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7258 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7259 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7260 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7261 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7262
7263       </div>
7264       <div class="tags">
7265
7266
7267         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>.
7268
7269
7270       </div>
7271     </div>
7272     <div class="padding"></div>
7273
7274     <div class="entry">
7275       <div class="title">
7276         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7277       </div>
7278       <div class="date">
7279          9th July 2010
7280       </div>
7281       <div class="body">
7282         <p>Since
7283 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7284 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7285 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7286 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7287 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7288 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7289 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7290 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7291 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7292 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7293 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7294 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7295 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7296
7297       </div>
7298       <div class="tags">
7299
7300
7301         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>.
7302
7303
7304       </div>
7305     </div>
7306     <div class="padding"></div>
7307
7308     <div class="entry">
7309       <div class="title">
7310         <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>
7311       </div>
7312       <div class="date">
7313          3rd July 2010
7314       </div>
7315       <div class="body">
7316         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7317 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7318 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7319 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7320 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7321 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7322 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7323 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7324
7325 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7326 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7327 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7328 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7329 publish the difference.</p>
7330
7331 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7332
7333 <blockquote><p>
7334   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7335   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7336   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7337   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7338   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7339   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7340   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7341   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7342 </p></blockquote>
7343
7344 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7345
7346 <blockquote><p>
7347   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7348   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7349   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7350   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7351   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7352   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7353   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7354   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7355   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7356   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7357   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7358   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7359   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7360   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7361   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7362   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7363   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7364   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7365   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7366   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7367 </p></blockquote>
7368
7369 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7370
7371 <blockquote><p>
7372   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7373   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7374   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7375   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7376   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7377   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7378   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7379   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7380   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7381   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7382   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7383   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7384   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7385   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7386   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7387   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7388   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7389   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7390   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7391   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7392   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7393 </p></blockquote>
7394
7395 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7396
7397 <blockquote><p>
7398   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7399   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7400   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7401 </p></blockquote>
7402
7403 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7404 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7405 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7406 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7407 the difference somewhat.
7408
7409       </div>
7410       <div class="tags">
7411
7412
7413         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>.
7414
7415
7416       </div>
7417     </div>
7418     <div class="padding"></div>
7419
7420     <div class="entry">
7421       <div class="title">
7422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7423       </div>
7424       <div class="date">
7425         28th June 2010
7426       </div>
7427       <div class="body">
7428         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7429 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7430 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7431 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7432 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7433 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7434 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7435 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7436 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7437 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7438
7439 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7440 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7441 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7442 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7443 released.</p>
7444
7445 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7446 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7447 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7448 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7449
7450 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7451 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7452
7453 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7454 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7455 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7456 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7457 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7458
7459       </div>
7460       <div class="tags">
7461
7462
7463         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>.
7464
7465
7466       </div>
7467     </div>
7468     <div class="padding"></div>
7469
7470     <div class="entry">
7471       <div class="title">
7472         <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>
7473       </div>
7474       <div class="date">
7475         24th June 2010
7476       </div>
7477       <div class="body">
7478         <p>A while back, I
7479 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7480 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7481 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7482 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7483
7484 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7485 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7486 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7487 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7488
7489 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7490 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7491 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7492 Debian Edu.</p>
7493
7494 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7495 the
7496 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7497 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7498 available today from IETF.</p>
7499
7500 <pre>
7501 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7502 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7503 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7504  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7505         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7506         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7507 -       SUP top
7508 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7509         MUST cn
7510         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7511         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7512 </pre>
7513
7514 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7515 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7516 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7517
7518 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7519 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7520
7521       </div>
7522       <div class="tags">
7523
7524
7525         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>.
7526
7527
7528       </div>
7529     </div>
7530     <div class="padding"></div>
7531
7532     <div class="entry">
7533       <div class="title">
7534         <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>
7535       </div>
7536       <div class="date">
7537         16th June 2010
7538       </div>
7539       <div class="body">
7540         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7541 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7542 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7543 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7544 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7545 this:
7546
7547 <blockquote><pre>
7548 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7549 tasksel --new-install
7550 </pre></blockquote>
7551
7552 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7553 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7554 any output what so ever.
7555
7556 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7557 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7558 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7559 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7560 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7561 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7562 code like this:
7563
7564 <blockquote><pre>
7565 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7566 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7567 $cmd
7568 </pre></blockquote>
7569
7570 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7571 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7572 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7573 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7574 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7575 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7576 installation.</p>
7577
7578 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7579 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7580 like this.</p>
7581
7582       </div>
7583       <div class="tags">
7584
7585
7586         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>.
7587
7588
7589       </div>
7590     </div>
7591     <div class="padding"></div>
7592
7593     <div class="entry">
7594       <div class="title">
7595         <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>
7596       </div>
7597       <div class="date">
7598         13th June 2010
7599       </div>
7600       <div class="body">
7601         <p>My
7602 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7603 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7604 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7605 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7606 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7607 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7608 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7609
7610 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7611 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7612 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7613 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7614 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7615 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7616 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7617 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7618
7619 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7620 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7621 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7622 too surprising.</p>
7623
7624 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7625 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7626 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7627 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7628 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7629 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7630 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7631 continue.</p>
7632
7633 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7634 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7635   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7636   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7637   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7638   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7639   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7640   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7641   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7642   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7643   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7644   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7645   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7646   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7647   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7648   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7649   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7650   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7651   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7652   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7653   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7654   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7655   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7656   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7657   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7658   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7659   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7660   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7661   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7662   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7663
7664 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7665
7666 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7667   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7668   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7669   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7670   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7671   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7672   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7673   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7674   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7675   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7676   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7677   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7678   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7679   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7680   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7681   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7682   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7683   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7684   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7685   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7686   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7687   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7688   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7689   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7690   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7691   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7692   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7693   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7694   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7695   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7696   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7697   zip</p>
7698
7699 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7700
7701 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7702   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7703   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7704   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7705   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7706   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7707   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7708   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7709   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7710   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7711   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7712   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7713   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7714   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7715   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7716   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7717   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7718   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7719   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7720   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7721   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7722   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7723   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7724   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7725   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7726   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7727   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7728   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7729
7730 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7731 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7732   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7733   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7734   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7735   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7736   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7737   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7738   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7739   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7740   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7741   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7742   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7743   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7744   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7745   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7746   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7747   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7748   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7749   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7750   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7751   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7752   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7753   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7754   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7755   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7756   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7757   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7758   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7759   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7760   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7761   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7762   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7763   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7764   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7765   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7766   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7767   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7768
7769
7770       </div>
7771       <div class="tags">
7772
7773
7774         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>.
7775
7776
7777       </div>
7778     </div>
7779     <div class="padding"></div>
7780
7781     <div class="entry">
7782       <div class="title">
7783         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7784       </div>
7785       <div class="date">
7786         11th June 2010
7787       </div>
7788       <div class="body">
7789         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7790 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7791 have been discovered and reported in the process
7792 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7793 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7794 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7795 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7796 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7797
7798 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7799 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7800 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7801 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7802 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7803 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7804
7805 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7806 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7807 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7808 is created.  The bug report
7809 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7810 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7811 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7812 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7813 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7814 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7815 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7816 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7817 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7818 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7819 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7820 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7821 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7822
7823 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7824 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7825 trick:</p>
7826
7827 <blockquote><pre>
7828 #!/bin/sh
7829 set -ex
7830
7831 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7832     desktop=$1
7833 else
7834     desktop=gnome
7835 fi
7836
7837 from=lenny
7838 to=squeeze
7839
7840 exec &lt; /dev/null
7841 unset LANG
7842 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7843 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7844 fuser -mv .
7845 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7846 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7847 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7848 #!/bin/sh
7849 exit 101
7850 EOF
7851 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7852 exit_cleanup() {
7853     umount $tmpdir/proc
7854 }
7855 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7856 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7857 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7858
7859 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7860
7861 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7862 # to return the correct answers.
7863 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7864     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7865
7866 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7867 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7868     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7869 #!/bin/sh
7870 exit 2
7871 EOF
7872     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7873 done
7874
7875 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7876 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7877 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7878 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7879
7880 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7881 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7882 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7883 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7884 fuser -mv
7885 </pre></blockquote>
7886
7887 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7888 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7889 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7890 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7891 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7892 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7893
7894 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7895 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7896 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7897 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7898 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7899 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7900 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7901
7902 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7903 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7904 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7905 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7906 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7907 packages.</p>
7908
7909       </div>
7910       <div class="tags">
7911
7912
7913         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>.
7914
7915
7916       </div>
7917     </div>
7918     <div class="padding"></div>
7919
7920     <div class="entry">
7921       <div class="title">
7922         <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>
7923       </div>
7924       <div class="date">
7925          6th June 2010
7926       </div>
7927       <div class="body">
7928         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7929 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7930 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7931 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7932 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7933 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7934 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7935
7936 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7937 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7938 COLUMNS):</p>
7939
7940 <blockquote><pre>
7941 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7942 previous=N
7943 PREVLEVEL=
7944 RUNLEVEL=
7945 runlevel=S
7946 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7947 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7948 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7949 </pre></blockquote>
7950
7951 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7952 script.</p>
7953
7954 <blockquote><pre>
7955 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7956 previous=N
7957 PREVLEVEL=N
7958 RUNLEVEL=S
7959 runlevel=S
7960 </pre></blockquote>
7961
7962 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7963 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7964 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7965
7966 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7967 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7968 choice.</p>
7969
7970       </div>
7971       <div class="tags">
7972
7973
7974         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>.
7975
7976
7977       </div>
7978     </div>
7979     <div class="padding"></div>
7980
7981     <div class="entry">
7982       <div class="title">
7983         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7984       </div>
7985       <div class="date">
7986          6th June 2010
7987       </div>
7988       <div class="body">
7989         <p>Via the
7990 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7991 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7992 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7993 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7994 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7995
7996       </div>
7997       <div class="tags">
7998
7999
8000         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>.
8001
8002
8003       </div>
8004     </div>
8005     <div class="padding"></div>
8006
8007     <div class="entry">
8008       <div class="title">
8009         <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>
8010       </div>
8011       <div class="date">
8012          3rd June 2010
8013       </div>
8014       <div class="body">
8015         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8016 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8017 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8018 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8019 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8020
8021 <blockquote><pre>
8022 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8023   vendor                    count
8024   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8025     PowerEdge 1750              1
8026   IBM                           1
8027     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8028   Intel                         2
8029   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8030 maintainer:~#
8031 </pre></blockquote>
8032
8033 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8034 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8035 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8036 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8037 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8038
8039 <p>A larger list is
8040 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8041 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8042 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8043 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8044 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8045 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8046 collector.</p>
8047
8048       </div>
8049       <div class="tags">
8050
8051
8052         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>.
8053
8054
8055       </div>
8056     </div>
8057     <div class="padding"></div>
8058
8059     <div class="entry">
8060       <div class="title">
8061         <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>
8062       </div>
8063       <div class="date">
8064          1st June 2010
8065       </div>
8066       <div class="body">
8067         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8068 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8069 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8070 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8071 wait.</p>
8072
8073 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8074 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8075 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8076 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8077 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8078 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8079
8080 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8081 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8082 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8083 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8084 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8085 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8086 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8087 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8088
8089 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8090
8091       </div>
8092       <div class="tags">
8093
8094
8095         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>.
8096
8097
8098       </div>
8099     </div>
8100     <div class="padding"></div>
8101
8102     <div class="entry">
8103       <div class="title">
8104         <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>
8105       </div>
8106       <div class="date">
8107         27th May 2010
8108       </div>
8109       <div class="body">
8110         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8111 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8112 issues are known and should be solved:
8113
8114 <p><ul>
8115
8116 <li>The wicd package seen to
8117 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8118 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8119 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8120 seem to be on the case.</li>
8121
8122 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8123 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8124 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8125 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8126
8127 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8128 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8129 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8130 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8131 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8132 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8133 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8134 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8135
8136 </ul></p>
8137
8138 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8139 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8140 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8141 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8142
8143 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8144 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8145 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8146 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8147
8148 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8149
8150       </div>
8151       <div class="tags">
8152
8153
8154         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>.
8155
8156
8157       </div>
8158     </div>
8159     <div class="padding"></div>
8160
8161     <div class="entry">
8162       <div class="title">
8163         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8164       </div>
8165       <div class="date">
8166         22nd May 2010
8167       </div>
8168       <div class="body">
8169         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8170 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8171 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8172 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8173
8174 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8175 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8176 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8177 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8178 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8179 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8180 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8181 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8182 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8183 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8184 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8185 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8186 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8187 going to work.</p>
8188
8189 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8190 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8191 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8192 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8193 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8194 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8195 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8196 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8197 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8198 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8199 Edu.</p>
8200
8201 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8202 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8203 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8204 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8205 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8206 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8207
8208 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8209 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8210
8211       </div>
8212       <div class="tags">
8213
8214
8215         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>.
8216
8217
8218       </div>
8219     </div>
8220     <div class="padding"></div>
8221
8222     <div class="entry">
8223       <div class="title">
8224         <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>
8225       </div>
8226       <div class="date">
8227         14th May 2010
8228       </div>
8229       <div class="body">
8230         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8231 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8232 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8233 expected, if I am to believe the
8234 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8235 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8236 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8237 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8238 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8239 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8240 version.</p>
8241
8242 More information about
8243 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8244 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8245 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8246 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8247
8248 <blockquote><pre>
8249 CONCURRENCY=none
8250 </pre></blockquote>
8251
8252 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8253 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8254 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8255 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8256
8257       </div>
8258       <div class="tags">
8259
8260
8261         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>.
8262
8263
8264       </div>
8265     </div>
8266     <div class="padding"></div>
8267
8268     <div class="entry">
8269       <div class="title">
8270         <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>
8271       </div>
8272       <div class="date">
8273         14th May 2010
8274       </div>
8275       <div class="body">
8276         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8277 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8278 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8279 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8280 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8281 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8282 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8283 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8284
8285 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8286 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8287 this on the collector host:</p>
8288
8289 <blockquote><pre>
8290 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8291 </pre></blockquote>
8292
8293 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8294 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8295
8296 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8297 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8298 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8299 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8300 written yet.</p>
8301
8302       </div>
8303       <div class="tags">
8304
8305
8306         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>.
8307
8308
8309       </div>
8310     </div>
8311     <div class="padding"></div>
8312
8313     <div class="entry">
8314       <div class="title">
8315         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8316       </div>
8317       <div class="date">
8318         13th May 2010
8319       </div>
8320       <div class="body">
8321         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8322 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8323 has been
8324 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8325
8326 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8327 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8328 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8329 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8330 based boot system.  Tollef is
8331 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8332 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8333 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8334 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8335 at the moment do not.</p>
8336
8337 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8338 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8339 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8340 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8341 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8342 way forward.</p>
8343
8344 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8345 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8346 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8347 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8348 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8349 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8350 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8351 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8352 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8353
8354       </div>
8355       <div class="tags">
8356
8357
8358         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>.
8359
8360
8361       </div>
8362     </div>
8363     <div class="padding"></div>
8364
8365     <div class="entry">
8366       <div class="title">
8367         <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>
8368       </div>
8369       <div class="date">
8370          6th May 2010
8371       </div>
8372       <div class="body">
8373         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8374 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8375 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8376 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8377 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8378 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8379 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8380
8381 <blockquote><pre>
8382 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8383 </pre></blockquote>
8384
8385 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8386 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8387 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8388 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8389 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8390 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8391 make this happen.</p>
8392
8393 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8394 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8395 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8396 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8397 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8398
8399 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8400 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8401 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8402 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8403
8404 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8405 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8406 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8407 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8408
8409       </div>
8410       <div class="tags">
8411
8412
8413         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>.
8414
8415
8416       </div>
8417     </div>
8418     <div class="padding"></div>
8419
8420     <div class="entry">
8421       <div class="title">
8422         <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>
8423       </div>
8424       <div class="date">
8425         27th July 2009
8426       </div>
8427       <div class="body">
8428         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8429 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8430 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8431 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8432 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8433 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8434 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8435
8436 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8437 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8438 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8439
8440       </div>
8441       <div class="tags">
8442
8443
8444         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>.
8445
8446
8447       </div>
8448     </div>
8449     <div class="padding"></div>
8450
8451     <div class="entry">
8452       <div class="title">
8453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8454       </div>
8455       <div class="date">
8456         22nd July 2009
8457       </div>
8458       <div class="body">
8459         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8460 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8461 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8462 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8463 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8464 the package up to date.</p>
8465
8466 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8467 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8468 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8469 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8470 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8471 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8472 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8473 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8474 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8475 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8476 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8477 working on the future release.</p>
8478
8479 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8480 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8481
8482       </div>
8483       <div class="tags">
8484
8485
8486         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>.
8487
8488
8489       </div>
8490     </div>
8491     <div class="padding"></div>
8492
8493     <div class="entry">
8494       <div class="title">
8495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8496       </div>
8497       <div class="date">
8498         24th June 2009
8499       </div>
8500       <div class="body">
8501         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8502 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8503 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8504 funded
8505 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8506 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8507 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8508 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8509 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8510 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8511
8512 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8513 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8514 boot:</p>
8515
8516 <ul>
8517
8518 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8519
8520 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8521    clock is in UTC.</li>
8522
8523 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8524    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8525    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8526
8527 </ul>
8528
8529 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8530 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8531 Villegas</a>.
8532
8533 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8534 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8535 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8536 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8537 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8538 using this.</p>
8539
8540 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8541 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8542 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8543 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8544 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8545 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8546 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8547
8548       </div>
8549       <div class="tags">
8550
8551
8552         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>.
8553
8554
8555       </div>
8556     </div>
8557     <div class="padding"></div>
8558
8559     <div class="entry">
8560       <div class="title">
8561         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8562       </div>
8563       <div class="date">
8564         17th May 2009
8565       </div>
8566       <div class="body">
8567         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8568 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8569 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8570 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8571 dager siden kom
8572 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8573 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8574 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8575 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8576 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8577
8578 <blockquote>
8579 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8580 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8581 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8582 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8583 </blockquote>
8584
8585 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8586 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8587 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8588 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8589 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8590
8591 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8592 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8593 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8594
8595       </div>
8596       <div class="tags">
8597
8598
8599         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>.
8600
8601
8602       </div>
8603     </div>
8604     <div class="padding"></div>
8605
8606     <div class="entry">
8607       <div class="title">
8608         <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>
8609       </div>
8610       <div class="date">
8611          7th May 2009
8612       </div>
8613       <div class="body">
8614         <p>Kom over
8615 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8616 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8617 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8618 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8619 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8620 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8621 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8622
8623       </div>
8624       <div class="tags">
8625
8626
8627         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>.
8628
8629
8630       </div>
8631     </div>
8632     <div class="padding"></div>
8633
8634     <div class="entry">
8635       <div class="title">
8636         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8637       </div>
8638       <div class="date">
8639          2nd May 2009
8640       </div>
8641       <div class="body">
8642         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8643 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8644 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8645 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8646 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8647 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8648 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8649 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8650 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8651 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8652 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8653 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8654 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8655 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8656 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8657 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8658 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8659 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8660 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8661 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8662
8663 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8664 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8665 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8666 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8667 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8668 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8669 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8670 betydelige.</p>
8671
8672       </div>
8673       <div class="tags">
8674
8675
8676         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>.
8677
8678
8679       </div>
8680     </div>
8681     <div class="padding"></div>
8682
8683     <div class="entry">
8684       <div class="title">
8685         <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>
8686       </div>
8687       <div class="date">
8688          2nd May 2009
8689       </div>
8690       <div class="body">
8691         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8692 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8693 do not yet know them.</p>
8694
8695 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8696 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8697 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8698 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8699 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8700 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8701 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8702 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8703 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8704 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8705 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8706
8707 <p>The second one is
8708 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8709 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8710 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8711 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8712 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8713 and the company behind it is running
8714 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8715 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8716 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8717 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8718 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8719 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8720 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8721 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8722
8723 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8724 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8725 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8726 surrounded by today.</p>
8727
8728       </div>
8729       <div class="tags">
8730
8731
8732         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>.
8733
8734
8735       </div>
8736     </div>
8737     <div class="padding"></div>
8738
8739     <div class="entry">
8740       <div class="title">
8741         <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>
8742       </div>
8743       <div class="date">
8744         28th April 2009
8745       </div>
8746       <div class="body">
8747         <p>Julien Blache
8748 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8749 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8750 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8751 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8752 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8753 properties.</p>
8754
8755       </div>
8756       <div class="tags">
8757
8758
8759         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>.
8760
8761
8762       </div>
8763     </div>
8764     <div class="padding"></div>
8765
8766     <div class="entry">
8767       <div class="title">
8768         <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>
8769       </div>
8770       <div class="date">
8771         30th March 2009
8772       </div>
8773       <div class="body">
8774         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8775 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8776 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8777 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8778 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8779 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8780 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8781 application.</p>
8782
8783 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8784 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8785 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8786 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8787 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8788 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8789 blocked from doing so.</p>
8790
8791 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8792 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8793 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8794 requirements change.</p>
8795
8796 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8797 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8798 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8799
8800       </div>
8801       <div class="tags">
8802
8803
8804         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>.
8805
8806
8807       </div>
8808     </div>
8809     <div class="padding"></div>
8810
8811     <div class="entry">
8812       <div class="title">
8813         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8814       </div>
8815       <div class="date">
8816         29th March 2009
8817       </div>
8818       <div class="body">
8819         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8820 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8821 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8822 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8823 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8824 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8825 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8826 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8827 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8828 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8829 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8830 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8831 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8832 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8833 now. :)</p>
8834
8835       </div>
8836       <div class="tags">
8837
8838
8839         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>.
8840
8841
8842       </div>
8843     </div>
8844     <div class="padding"></div>
8845
8846     <div class="entry">
8847       <div class="title">
8848         <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>
8849       </div>
8850       <div class="date">
8851         29th March 2009
8852       </div>
8853       <div class="body">
8854         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8855 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8856 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8857 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8858 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8859 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8860
8861 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8862 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8863 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8864 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8865 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8866 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8867 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8868 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8869 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8870 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8871 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8872 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8873 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8874
8875 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8876 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8877 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8878 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8879
8880 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8881 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8882
8883 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8884 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8885 new IETF work group?</p>
8886
8887       </div>
8888       <div class="tags">
8889
8890
8891         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>.
8892
8893
8894       </div>
8895     </div>
8896     <div class="padding"></div>
8897
8898     <div class="entry">
8899       <div class="title">
8900         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8901       </div>
8902       <div class="date">
8903         15th February 2009
8904       </div>
8905       <div class="body">
8906         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8907 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8908 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8909 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8910 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8911 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8912 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8913 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8914 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8915 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8916 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8917 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8918
8919       </div>
8920       <div class="tags">
8921
8922
8923         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>.
8924
8925
8926       </div>
8927     </div>
8928     <div class="padding"></div>
8929
8930     <div class="entry">
8931       <div class="title">
8932         <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>
8933       </div>
8934       <div class="date">
8935          7th December 2008
8936       </div>
8937       <div class="body">
8938         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8939 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8940 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8941 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8942 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8943 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8944 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8945 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8946
8947 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8948 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8949 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8950 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8951 of these cards.</p>
8952
8953       </div>
8954       <div class="tags">
8955
8956
8957         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>.
8958
8959
8960       </div>
8961     </div>
8962     <div class="padding"></div>
8963
8964     <div class="entry">
8965       <div class="title">
8966         <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>
8967       </div>
8968       <div class="date">
8969         25th November 2008
8970       </div>
8971       <div class="body">
8972         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8973 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8974 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8975 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8976 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8977 notes are available on
8978 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8979 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8980 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8981 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8982 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8983 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8984 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8985 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8986 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8987
8988 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8989 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8990
8991       </div>
8992       <div class="tags">
8993
8994
8995         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>.
8996
8997
8998       </div>
8999     </div>
9000     <div class="padding"></div>
9001
9002     <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>
9003     <div id="sidebar">
9004
9005
9006
9007 <h2>Archive</h2>
9008 <ul>
9009
9010 <li>2015
9011 <ul>
9012
9013 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9014
9015 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9016
9017 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9018
9019 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (1)</a></li>
9020
9021 </ul></li>
9022
9023 <li>2014
9024 <ul>
9025
9026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9027
9028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9029
9030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9031
9032 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9033
9034 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9035
9036 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9037
9038 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9039
9040 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9041
9042 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9043
9044 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9045
9046 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9047
9048 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9049
9050 </ul></li>
9051
9052 <li>2013
9053 <ul>
9054
9055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9056
9057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9058
9059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9060
9061 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9062
9063 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9064
9065 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9066
9067 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9068
9069 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9070
9071 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9072
9073 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9074
9075 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9076
9077 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9078
9079 </ul></li>
9080
9081 <li>2012
9082 <ul>
9083
9084 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9085
9086 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9087
9088 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9089
9090 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9091
9092 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9093
9094 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9095
9096 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9097
9098 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9099
9100 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9101
9102 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9103
9104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9105
9106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9107
9108 </ul></li>
9109
9110 <li>2011
9111 <ul>
9112
9113 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9114
9115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9116
9117 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9118
9119 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9120
9121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9122
9123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9124
9125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9126
9127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9128
9129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9130
9131 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9132
9133 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9134
9135 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9136
9137 </ul></li>
9138
9139 <li>2010
9140 <ul>
9141
9142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9143
9144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9145
9146 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9147
9148 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9149
9150 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9151
9152 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9153
9154 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9155
9156 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9157
9158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9159
9160 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9161
9162 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9163
9164 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9165
9166 </ul></li>
9167
9168 <li>2009
9169 <ul>
9170
9171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9172
9173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9174
9175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9176
9177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9178
9179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9180
9181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9182
9183 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9184
9185 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9186
9187 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9188
9189 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9190
9191 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9192
9193 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9194
9195 </ul></li>
9196
9197 <li>2008
9198 <ul>
9199
9200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9201
9202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9203
9204 </ul></li>
9205
9206 </ul>
9207
9208
9209
9210 <h2>Tags</h2>
9211 <ul>
9212
9213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9214
9215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9216
9217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9218
9219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9220
9221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9222
9223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9224
9225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9226
9227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9228
9229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
9230
9231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
9232
9233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9234
9235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9236
9237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (13)</a></li>
9238
9239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9240
9241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (272)</a></li>
9242
9243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (22)</a></li>
9244
9245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9246
9247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (15)</a></li>
9248
9249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9250
9251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (14)</a></li>
9252
9253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
9254
9255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9256
9257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9258
9259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9260
9261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9262
9263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9264
9265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9266
9267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9268
9269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
9270
9271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (260)</a></li>
9272
9273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (175)</a></li>
9274
9275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (15)</a></li>
9276
9277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9278
9279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (51)</a></li>
9280
9281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (83)</a></li>
9282
9283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9284
9285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9286
9287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9288
9289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9290
9291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9292
9293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9294
9295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9296
9297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9298
9299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9300
9301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9302
9303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9304
9305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
9306
9307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9308
9309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9310
9311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (30)</a></li>
9312
9313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9314
9315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9316
9317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9318
9319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (50)</a></li>
9320
9321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9322
9323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (35)</a></li>
9324
9325 </ul>
9326
9327
9328     </div>
9329     <p style="text-align: right">
9330  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9331 </p>
9332
9333   </body>
9334 </html>