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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="https://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="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/wmbusmeters__parse_data_from_your_utility_meter___nice_free_software.html">wmbusmeters, parse data from your utility meter - nice free software</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         19th May 2023
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>There is a European standard for reading utility meters like water,
  32 gas, electricity or heat distribution meters.  The
  33 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter-Bus">Meter-Bus standard
  34 (EN 13757-2, EN 13757-3 and EN 13757–4)</a> provide a cross vendor way
  35 to talk to and collect meter data.  I ran into this standard when I
  36 wanted to monitor some heat distribution meters, and managed to find
  37 free software that could do the job.  The meters in question broadcast
  38 encrypted messages with meter information via radio, and the hardest
  39 part was to track down the encryption keys from the vendor.  With this
  40 in place I could set up a MQTT gateway to submit the meter data for
  41 graphing.</p>
  42
  43 <p>The free software systems in question,
  44 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rtl-wmbus">rtl-wmbus</a> to
  45 read the messages from a software defined radio, and
  46 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/wmbusmeters">wmbusmeters</a> to
  47 decrypt and decode the content of the messages, is working very well
  48 and allowe me to get frequent updates from my meters.  I got in touch
  49 with upstream last year to see if there was any interest in publishing
  50 the packages via Debian.  I was very happy to learn that Fredrik
  51 Öhrström volunteered to maintain the packages, and I have since
  52 assisted him in getting Debian package build rules in place as well as
  53 sponsoring the packages into the Debian archive.  Sadly we completed
  54 it too late for them to become part of the next stable Debian release
  55 (Bookworm).  The wmbusmeters package just cleared the NEW queue.  It
  56 will need some work to fix a built problem, but I expect Fredrik will
  57 find a solution soon.</p>
  58
  59 <p>If you got a infrastructure meter supporting the Meter Bus
  60 standard, I strongly recommend having a look at these nice
  61 packages.</p>
  62
  63 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  64 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  65 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  66
  67       </div>
  68       <div class="tags">
  69
  70
  71         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
  72
  73
  74       </div>
  75     </div>
  76     <div class="padding"></div>
  77
  78     <div class="entry">
  79       <div class="title">
  80         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_2023_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html">The 2023 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering</a>
  81       </div>
  82       <div class="date">
  83         14th May 2023
  84       </div>
  85       <div class="body">
  86         <p>The LinuxCNC project is making headway these days.  A lot of
  87 patches and issues have seen activity on
  88 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/">the project github
  89 pages</a> recently.  A few weeks ago there was a developer gathering
  90 over at the <a href="https://tormach.com/">Tormach</a> headquarter in
  91 Wisconsin, and now we are planning a new gathering in Norway.  If you
  92 wonder what LinuxCNC is, lets quote Wikipedia:</p>
  93
  94 <blockquote>
  95 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
  96 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
  97 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
  98 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
  99 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
 100 interactive development)."
 101 </blockquote>
 102
 103 <p>The Norwegian developer gathering take place the weekend June 16th
 104 to 18th this year, and is open for everyone interested in contributing
 105 to LinuxCNC.  Up to date information about the gathering can be found
 106 in
 107 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/sa64jp06nob.fsf%40hjemme.reinholdtsen.name/#msg37837251">the
 108 developer mailing list thread</a> where the gathering was announced.
 109 Thanks to the good people at
 110 <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>,
 111 <a href="https://www.redpill-linpro.com/">Redpill-Linpro</a> and
 112 <a href="https://www.nuugfoundation.no/no/">NUUG Foundation</a>, we
 113 have enough sponsor funds to pay for food, and shelter for the people
 114 traveling from afar to join us.  If you would like to join the
 115 gathering, get in touch.</p>
 116
 117 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 118 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 119 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 120
 121       </div>
 122       <div class="tags">
 123
 124
 125         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>.
 126
 127
 128       </div>
 129     </div>
 130     <div class="padding"></div>
 131
 132     <div class="entry">
 133       <div class="title">
 134         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenSnitch_in_Debian_ready_for_prime_time.html">OpenSnitch in Debian ready for prime time</a>
 135       </div>
 136       <div class="date">
 137         13th May 2023
 138       </div>
 139       <div class="body">
 140         <p>A bit delayed,
 141 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
 142 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> package in Debian now got the
 143 latest fixes ready for Debian Bookworm.  Because it depend on a
 144 package missing on some architectures, the autopkgtest check of the
 145 testing migration script did not understand that the tests were
 146 actually working, so the migration was delayed.  A bug in the package
 147 dependencies is also fixed, so those installing the firewall package
 148 (opensnitch) now also get the GUI admin tool (python3-opensnitch-ui)
 149 installed by default.  I am very grateful to Gustavo Iñiguez Goya for
 150 his work on getting the package ready for Debian Bookworm.</p>
 151
 152 <p>Armed with this package I have discovered some surprising
 153 connections from programs I believed were able to work completly
 154 offline, and it has already proven its worth, at least to me.  If you
 155 too want to get more familiar with the kind of programs using
 156 Internett connections on your machine, I recommend testing <tt>apt
 157 install opensnitch</tt> in Bookworm and see what you think.</p>
 158
 159 <p>The package is still not able to build its eBPF module within
 160 Debian.  Not sure how much work it would be to get it working, but
 161 suspect some kernel related packages need to be extended with more
 162 header files to get it working.</p>
 163
 164 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 165 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 166 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 167
 168       </div>
 169       <div class="tags">
 170
 171
 172         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 173
 174
 175       </div>
 176     </div>
 177     <div class="padding"></div>
 178
 179     <div class="entry">
 180       <div class="title">
 181         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speech_to_text__she_APTly_whispered__how_hard_can_it_be_.html">Speech to text, she APTly whispered, how hard can it be?</a>
 182       </div>
 183       <div class="date">
 184         23rd April 2023
 185       </div>
 186       <div class="body">
 187         <p>While visiting a convention during Easter, it occurred to me that
 188 it would be great if I could have a digital Dictaphone with
 189 transcribing capabilities, providing me with texts to cut-n-paste into
 190 stuff I need to write.  The background is that long drives often bring
 191 up the urge to write on texts I am working on, which of course is out
 192 of the question while driving.  With the release of
 193 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/">OpenAI Whisper</a>, this
 194 seem to be within reach with Free Software, so I decided to give it a
 195 go.  OpenAI Whisper is a Linux based neural network system to read in
 196 audio files and provide text representation of the speech in that
 197 audio recording.  It handle multiple languages and according to its
 198 creators even can translate into a different language than the spoken
 199 one.  I have not tested the latter feature.  It can either use the CPU
 200 or a GPU with CUDA support.  As far as I can tell, CUDA in practice
 201 limit that feature to NVidia graphics cards.  I have few of those, as
 202 they do not work great with free software drivers, and have not tested
 203 the GPU option.  While looking into the matter, I did discover some
 204 work to provide CUDA support on non-NVidia GPUs, and some work with
 205 the library used by Whisper to port it to other GPUs, but have not
 206 spent much time looking into GPU support yet.  I've so far used an old
 207 X220 laptop as my test machine, and only transcribed using its
 208 CPU.</p>
 209
 210 <p>As it from a privacy standpoint is unthinkable to use computers
 211 under control of someone else (aka a "cloud" service) to transcribe
 212 ones thoughts and personal notes, I want to run the transcribing
 213 system locally on my own computers.  The only sensible approach to me
 214 is to make the effort I put into this available for any Linux user and
 215 to upload the needed packages into Debian.  Looking at Debian Bookworm, I
 216 discovered that only three packages were missing,
 217 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034307">tiktoken</a>,
 218 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034144">triton</a>, and
 219 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034091">openai-whisper</a>.  For a while
 220 I also believed
 221 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034286">ffmpeg-python</a> was
 222 needed, but as its
 223 <a href="https://github.com/kkroening/ffmpeg-python/issues/760">upstream
 224 seem to have vanished</a> I found it safer
 225 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1242">to rewrite
 226 whisper</a> to stop depending on in than to introduce ffmpeg-python
 227 into Debian.  I decided to place these packages under the umbrella of
 228 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team">the Debian Deep
 229 Learning Team</a>, which seem like the best team to look after such
 230 packages.  Discussing the topic within the group also made me aware
 231 that the triton package was already a future dependency of newer
 232 versions of the torch package being planned, and would be needed after
 233 Bookworm is released.</p>
 234
 235 <p>All required code packages have been now waiting in
 236 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the Debian NEW
 237 queue</a> since Wednesday, heading for Debian Experimental until
 238 Bookworm is released.  An unsolved issue is how to handle the neural
 239 network models used by Whisper.  The default behaviour of Whisper is
 240 to require Internet connectivity and download the model requested to
 241 <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt> on first invocation.  This obviously would
 242 fail <a href="https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html">the
 243 deserted island test of free software</a> as the Debian packages would
 244 be unusable for someone stranded with only the Debian archive and solar
 245 powered computer on a deserted island.</p>
 246
 247 <p>Because of this, I would love to include the models in the Debian
 248 mirror system.  This is problematic, as the models are very large
 249 files, which would put a heavy strain on the Debian mirror
 250 infrastructure around the globe.  The strain would be even higher if
 251 the models change often, which luckily as far as I can tell they do
 252 not.  The small model, which according to its creator is most useful
 253 for English and in my experience is not doing a great job there
 254 either, is 462 MiB (deb is 414 MiB).  The medium model, which to me
 255 seem to handle English speech fairly well is 1.5 GiB (deb is 1.3 GiB)
 256 and the large model is 2.9 GiB (deb is 2.6 GiB).  I would assume
 257 everyone with enough resources would prefer to use the large model for
 258 highest quality.  I believe the models themselves would have to go
 259 into the non-free part of the Debian archive, as they are not really
 260 including any useful source code for updating the models.  The
 261 "source", aka the model training set, according to the creators
 262 consist of "680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised
 263 data collected from the web", which to me reads material with both
 264 unknown copyright terms, unavailable to the general public.  In other
 265 words, the source is not available according to the Debian Free
 266 Software Guidelines and the model should be considered non-free.</p>
 267
 268 <p>I asked the Debian FTP masters for advice regarding uploading a
 269 model package on their IRC channel, and based on the feedback there it
 270 is still unclear to me if such package would be accepted into the
 271 archive.  In any case I wrote build rules for a
 272 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team/openai-whisper-model">OpenAI
 273 Whisper model package</a> and
 274 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1257">modified the
 275 Whisper code base</a> to prefer shared files under <tt>/usr/</tt> and
 276 <tt>/var/</tt> over user specific files in <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt>
 277 to be able to use these model packages, to prepare for such
 278 possibility.  One solution might be to include only one of the models
 279 (small or medium, I guess) in the Debian archive, and ask people to
 280 download the others from the Internet.  Not quite sure what to do
 281 here, and advice is most welcome (use the debian-ai mailing list).</p>
 282
 283 <p>To make it easier to test the new packages while I wait for them to
 284 clear the NEW queue, I created an APT source targeting bookworm.  I
 285 selected Bookworm instead of Bullseye, even though I know the latter
 286 would reach more users, is that some of the required dependencies are
 287 missing from Bullseye and I during this phase of testing did not want
 288 to backport a lot of packages just to get up and running.</p>
 289
 290 <p>Here is a recipe to run as user root if you want to test OpenAI
 291 Whisper using Debian packages on your Debian Bookworm installation,
 292 first adding the APT repository GPG key to the list of trusted keys,
 293 then setting up the APT repository and finally installing the packages
 294 and one of the models:</p>
 295
 296 <p><pre>
 297 curl https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/D78F5C4796F353D211B119E28200D9B589641240.asc \
 298   -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/pere-whisper.asc
 299 mkdir -p /etc/apt/sources.list.d
 300 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pere-whisper.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 301 deb https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 302 deb-src https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 303 EOF
 304 apt update
 305 apt install openai-whisper
 306 </pre></p>
 307
 308 <p>The package work for me, but have not yet been tested on any other
 309 computer than my own.  With it, I have been able to (badly) transcribe
 310 a 2 minute 40 second Norwegian audio clip to test using the small
 311 model.  This took 11 minutes and around 2.2 GiB of RAM.  Transcribing
 312 the same file with the medium model gave a accurate text in 77 minutes
 313 using around 5.2 GiB of RAM.  My test machine had too little memory to
 314 test the large model, which I believe require 11 GiB of RAM.  In
 315 short, this now work for me using Debian packages, and I hope it will
 316 for you and everyone else once the packages enter Debian.</p>
 317
 318 <p>Now I can start on the audio recording part of this project.</p>
 319
 320 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 321 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 322 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 323
 324       </div>
 325       <div class="tags">
 326
 327
 328         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 329
 330
 331       </div>
 332     </div>
 333     <div class="padding"></div>
 334
 335     <div class="entry">
 336       <div class="title">
 337         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/rtlsdr_scanner__software_defined_radio_frequency_scanner_for_Linux____nice_free_software.html">rtlsdr-scanner, software defined radio frequency scanner for Linux  - nice free software</a>
 338       </div>
 339       <div class="date">
 340          7th April 2023
 341       </div>
 342       <div class="body">
 343         <p>Today I finally found time to track down a useful radio frequency
 344 scanner for my software defined radio.  Just for fun I tried to locate
 345 the radios used in the areas, and a good start would be to scan all
 346 the frequencies to see what is in use.  I've tried to find a useful
 347 program earlier, but ran out of time before I managed to find a useful
 348 tool.  This time I was more successful, and after a few false leads I
 349 found a description of
 350 <a href="https://www.kali.org/tools/rtlsdr-scanner/">rtlsdr-scanner
 351 over at the Kali site</a>, and was able to track down
 352 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/rtlsdr-scanner.git">the
 353 Kali package git repository</a> to build a deb package for the
 354 scanner.  Sadly the package is missing from the Debian project itself,
 355 at least in Debian Bullseye.  Two runtime dependencies,
 356 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-visvis.git">python-visvis</a>
 357 and
 358 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-rtlsdr.git">python-rtlsdr</a>
 359 had to be built and installed separately.  Luckily '<tt>gbp
 360 buildpackage</tt>' handled them just fine and no further packages had
 361 to be manually built.  The end result worked out of the box after
 362 installation.</p>
 363
 364 <p>My initial scans for FM channels worked just fine, so I knew the
 365 scanner was functioning.  But when I tried to scan every frequency
 366 from 100 to 1000 MHz, the program stopped unexpectedly near the
 367 completion.  After some debugging I discovered USB software radio I
 368 used rejected frequencies above 948 MHz, triggering a unreported
 369 exception breaking the scan.  Changing the scan to end at 957 worked
 370 better.  I similarly found the lower limit to be around 15, and ended
 371 up with the following full scan:</p>
 372
 373 <p><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png" width="100%"></a></p>
 374
 375 <p>Saving the scan did not work, but exporting it as a CSV file worked
 376 just fine.  I ended up with around 477k CVS lines with dB level for
 377 the given frequency.</p>
 378
 379 <p>The save failure seem to be a missing UTF-8 encoding issue in the
 380 python code.  Will see if I can find time to send a patch
 381 <a href="https://github.com/CdeMills/RTLSDR-Scanner/">upstream</a>
 382 later to fix this exception:</p>
 383
 384 <pre>
 385 Traceback (most recent call last):
 386   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 387     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 388   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 389     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 390 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 391 Traceback (most recent call last):
 392   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 393     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 394   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 395     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 396 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 397 </pre>
 398
 399 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 400 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 401 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 402
 403       </div>
 404       <div class="tags">
 405
 406
 407         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 408
 409
 410       </div>
 411     </div>
 412     <div class="padding"></div>
 413
 414     <div class="entry">
 415       <div class="title">
 416         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenSnitch_available_in_Debian_Sid_and_Bookworm.html">OpenSnitch available in Debian Sid and Bookworm</a>
 417       </div>
 418       <div class="date">
 419         25th February 2023
 420       </div>
 421       <div class="body">
 422         <p>Thanks to the efforts of the OpenSnitch lead developer Gustavo
 423 Iñiguez Goya allowing me to sponsor the upload,
 424 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
 425 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> is now available in Debian
 426 Testing, soon to become the next stable release of Debian.</p>
 427
 428 <p>This is a package which set up a network firewall on one or more
 429 machines, which is controlled by a graphical user interface that will
 430 ask the user if a program should be allowed to connect to the local
 431 network or the Internet.  If some background daemon is trying to dial
 432 home, it can be blocked from doing so with a simple mouse click, or by
 433 default simply by not doing anything when the GUI question dialog pop
 434 up.  A list of all programs discovered using the network is provided
 435 in the GUI, giving the user an overview of how the machine(s) programs
 436 use the network.</p>
 437
 438 <p>OpenSnitch was uploaded for NEW processing about a month ago, and I
 439 had little hope of it getting accepted and shaping up in time for the
 440 package freeze, but the Debian ftpmasters proved to be amazingly quick
 441 at checking out the package and it was accepted into the archive about
 442 week after the first upload.  It is now team maintained under the Go
 443 language team umbrella.  A few fixes to the default setup is only in
 444 Sid, and should migrate to Testing/Bookworm in a week.</p>
 445
 446 <p>During testing I ran into an
 447 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/813">issue
 448 with Minecraft server broadcasts disappearing</a>, which was quickly
 449 resolved by the developer with a patch and a proposed configuration
 450 change.  I've been told this was caused by the Debian packages default
 451 use if /proc/ information to track down kernel status, instead of the
 452 newer eBPF module that can be used.  The reason is simply that
 453 upstream and I have failed to find a way to build the eBPF modules for
 454 OpenSnitch without a complete configured Linux kernel source tree,
 455 which as far as we can tell is unavailable as a build dependency in
 456 Debian.  We tried unsuccessfully so far to use the kernel-headers
 457 package.  It would be great if someone could provide some clues how to
 458 build eBPF modules on build daemons in Debian, possibly without the full
 459 kernel source.</p>
 460
 461 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 462 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 463 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 464
 465       </div>
 466       <div class="tags">
 467
 468
 469         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 470
 471
 472       </div>
 473     </div>
 474     <div class="padding"></div>
 475
 476     <div class="entry">
 477       <div class="title">
 478         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html">Is the desktop recommending your program for opening its files?</a>
 479       </div>
 480       <div class="date">
 481         29th January 2023
 482       </div>
 483       <div class="body">
 484         <p>Linux desktop systems
 485 <a href="https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html">have
 486 standardized</a> how programs present themselves to the desktop
 487 system.  If a package include a .desktop file in
 488 /usr/share/applications/, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and the other desktop
 489 environments will pick up the file and use its content to generate the
 490 menu of available programs in the system.  A lesser known fact is that
 491 a package can also explain to the desktop system how to recognize the
 492 files created by the program in question, and use it to open these
 493 files on request, for example via a GUI file browser.</p>
 494
 495 <p>A while back I ran into a package that did not tell the desktop
 496 system how to recognize its files and was not used to open its files
 497 in the file browser and fixed it.  In the process I wrote a simple
 498 debian/tests/ script to ensure the setup keep working.  It might be
 499 useful for other packages too, to ensure any future version of the
 500 package keep handling its own files.</p>
 501
 502 <p>For this to work the file format need a useful MIME type that can
 503 be used to identify the format.  If the file format do not yet have a
 504 MIME type, it should define one and preferably also
 505 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">register
 506 it with IANA</a> to ensure the MIME type string is reserved.</p>
 507
 508 <p>The script uses the <tt>xdg-mime</tt> program from xdg-utils to
 509 query the database of standardized package information and ensure it
 510 return sensible values.  It also need the location of an example file
 511 for xdg-mime to guess the format of.</p>
 512
 513 <pre>
 514 #!/bin/sh
 515 #
 516 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
 517 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice.
 518 #
 519 # Validate the MIME setup, making sure motor types have
 520 # application/vnd.openmotor+yaml associated with them and is connected
 521 # to the openmotor desktop file.
 522
 523 retval=0
 524
 525 mimetype="application/vnd.openmotor+yaml"
 526 testfile="test/data/real/o3100/motor.ric"
 527 mydesktopfile="openmotor.desktop"
 528
 529 filemime="$(xdg-mime query filetype "$testfile")"
 530
 531 if [ "$mimetype" != "$filemime" ] ; then
 532     retval=1
 533     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file MIME type is $filemine, not $mimetype"
 534 else
 535     echo "success: xdg-mime report correct mime type $mimetype for motor file"
 536 fi
 537
 538 desktop=$(xdg-mime query default "$mimetype")
 539
 540 if [ "$mydesktopfile" != "$desktop" ]; then
 541     retval=1
 542     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file should be handled by $desktop, not $mydesktopfile"
 543 else
 544     echo "success: xdg-mime agree motor file should be handled by $mydesktopfile"
 545 fi
 546
 547 exit $retval
 548 </pre>
 549
 550 <p>It is a simple way to ensure your users are not very surprised when
 551 they try to open one of your file formats in their file browser.</p>
 552
 553 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 554 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 555 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 556
 557       </div>
 558       <div class="tags">
 559
 560
 561         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 562
 563
 564       </div>
 565     </div>
 566     <div class="padding"></div>
 567
 568     <div class="entry">
 569       <div class="title">
 570         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opensnitch__the_application_level_interactive_firewall__heading_into_the_Debian_archive.html">Opensnitch, the application level interactive firewall, heading into the Debian archive</a>
 571       </div>
 572       <div class="date">
 573         22nd January 2023
 574       </div>
 575       <div class="body">
 576         <p>While reading a
 577 <a href="https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/">blog
 578 post claiming MacOS X recently started scanning local files and
 579 reporting information about them to Apple</a>, even on a machine where
 580 all such callback features had been disabled, I came across a
 581 description of the Little Snitch application for MacOS X.  It seemed
 582 like a very nice tool to have in the tool box, and I decided to see if
 583 something similar was available for Linux.</p>
 584
 585 <p>It did not take long to find
 586 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch">the OpenSnitch
 587 package</a>, which has been in development since 2017, and now is in
 588 version 1.5.0.  It has had a
 589 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/909567">request for Debian
 590 packaging</a> since 2018, but no-one completed the job so far.  Just
 591 for fun, I decided to see if I could help, and I was very happy to
 592 discover that
 593 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/304">upstream
 594 want a Debian package too</a>.</p>
 595
 596 <p>After struggling a bit with getting the program to run, figuring
 597 out building Go programs (and a little failed detour to look at eBPF
 598 builds too - help needed), I am very happy to report that I am
 599 sponsoring upstream to maintain the package in Debian, and it has
 600 since this morning been waiting in NEW for the ftpmasters to have a
 601 look.  Perhaps it can get into the archive in time for the Bookworm
 602 release?</p>
 603
 604 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 605 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 606 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 607
 608       </div>
 609       <div class="tags">
 610
 611
 612         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 613
 614
 615       </div>
 616     </div>
 617     <div class="padding"></div>
 618
 619     <div class="entry">
 620       <div class="title">
 621         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_MQTT_publisher_component.html">LinuxCNC MQTT publisher component</a>
 622       </div>
 623       <div class="date">
 624          8th January 2023
 625       </div>
 626       <div class="body">
 627         <p>I watched <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jmKUV3aNLjk">a 2015
 628 video from Andreas Schiffler</a> the other day, where he set up
 629 <a href="https://linuxcnc.org/">LinuxCNC</a> to send status
 630 information to the MQTT broker IBM Bluemix.  As I also use MQTT for
 631 graphing, it occured to me that a generic MQTT LinuxCNC component
 632 would be useful and I set out to implement it.  Today I got the first
 633 draft limping along and submitted as
 634 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2253">a patch to the
 635 LinuxCNC project</a>.</p>
 636
 637 <p>The simple part was setting up the MQTT publishing code in Python.
 638 I already have set up other parts submitting data to my Mosquito MQTT
 639 broker, so I could reuse that code.  Writing a LinuxCNC component in
 640 Python as new to me, but using existing examples in the code
 641 repository and the extensive documentation, this was fairly straight
 642 forward.  The hardest part was creating a automated test for the
 643 component to ensure it was working.  Testing it in a simulated
 644 LinuxCNC machine proved very useful, as I discovered features I needed
 645 that I had not thought of yet, and adjusted the code quite a bit to
 646 make it easier to test without a operational MQTT broker
 647 available.</p>
 648
 649 <p>The draft is ready and working, but I am unsure which LinuxCNC HAL
 650 pins I should collect and publish by default (in other words, the
 651 default set of information pieces published), and how to get the
 652 machine name from the LinuxCNC INI file.  The latter is a minor
 653 detail, but I expect it would be useful in a setup with several
 654 machines available.  I am hoping for feedback from the experienced
 655 LinuxCNC developers and users, to make the component even better
 656 before it can go into the mainland LinuxCNC code base.</p>
 657
 658 <p>Since I started on the MQTT component, I came across
 659 <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Bqa2grG0XtA">another video from Kent
 660 VanderVelden</a> where he combine LinuxCNC with a set of screen glasses
 661 controlled by a Raspberry Pi, and it occured to me that it would
 662 be useful for such use cases if LinuxCNC also provided a REST API for
 663 querying its status.  I hope to start on such component once the MQTT
 664 component is working well.</p>
 665
 666 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 667 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 668 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 669
 670       </div>
 671       <div class="tags">
 672
 673
 674         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 675
 676
 677       </div>
 678     </div>
 679     <div class="padding"></div>
 680
 681     <div class="entry">
 682       <div class="title">
 683         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ONVIF_IP_camera_management_tool_finally_in_Debian.html">ONVIF IP camera management tool finally in Debian</a>
 684       </div>
 685       <div class="date">
 686         24th December 2022
 687       </div>
 688       <div class="body">
 689         <p>Merry Christmas to you all.  Here is a small gift to all those with
 690 IP cameras following the <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">ONVIF
 691 specification</a>.  There is finally a nice command line and GUI tool
 692 in Debian to manage ONVIF IP cameras.  After working with upstream for
 693 a few months and sponsoring the upload, I am very happy to report that
 694 the <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/libonvif">libonvif package</a>
 695 entered Debian Sid last night.</p>
 696
 697 <p>The package provide a C library to communicate with such cameras, a
 698 command line tool to locate and update settings of (like password) the
 699 cameras and a GUI tool to configure and control the units as well as
 700 preview the video from the camera.  Libonvif is available on Both
 701 Linux and Windows and the GUI tool uses the Qt library.  The main
 702 competitors are non-free software, while libonvif is GNU GPL licensed.
 703 I am very glad Debian users in the future can control their cameras
 704 using a free software system provided by Debian.  But the ONVIF world
 705 is full of slightly broken firmware, where the cameras pretend to
 706 follow the ONVIF specification but fail to set some configuration
 707 values or refuse to provide video to more than one recipient at the
 708 time, and the onvif project is quite young and might take a while
 709 before it completely work with your camera.  Upstream seem eager to
 710 improve the library, so handling any broken camera might be just <a
 711 href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">a bug report away</a>.</p>
 712
 713 <p>The package just cleared NEW, and need a new source only upload
 714 before it can enter testing.  This will happen in the next few
 715 days.</p>
 716
 717 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 718 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 719 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 720
 721       </div>
 722       <div class="tags">
 723
 724
 725         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 726
 727
 728       </div>
 729     </div>
 730     <div class="padding"></div>
 731
 732     <div class="entry">
 733       <div class="title">
 734         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html">Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux</a>
 735       </div>
 736       <div class="date">
 737         19th October 2022
 738       </div>
 739       <div class="body">
 740         <p>Recently I have been looking at how to control and collect data
 741 from a handful IP cameras using Linux.  I both wanted to change their
 742 settings and to make their imagery available via a free software
 743 service under my control.  Here is a summary of the tools I found.</p>
 744
 745 <p>First I had to identify the cameras and their protocols.  As far as
 746 I could tell, they were using some SOAP looking protocol and their
 747 internal web server seem to only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer
 748 with some proprietary binary plugin, which in these days of course is
 749 a security disaster and also made it impossible for me to use the
 750 camera web interface.  Luckily I discovered that the SOAP looking
 751 protocol is actually following <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">the
 752 ONVIF specification</a>, which seem to be supported by a lot of IP
 753 cameras these days.</p>
 754
 755 <p>Once the protocol was identified, I was able to find what appear to
 756 be the most popular way to configure ONVIF cameras, the free software
 757 Windows tool named
 758 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/">ONVIF Device
 759 Manager</a>.  Lacking any other options at the time, I tried
 760 unsuccessfully to get it running using Wine, but was missing a dotnet
 761 40 library and I found no way around it to run it on Linux.</p>
 762
 763 <p>The next tool I found to configure the cameras were a non-free Linux Qt
 764 client <a href="https://www.lingodigit.com/onvif_nvcdemo.html">ONVIF
 765 Device Tool</a>.  I did not like its terms of use, so did not spend
 766 much time on it.</p>
 767
 768 <p>To collect the video and make it available in a web interface, I
 769 found the Zoneminder tool in Debian.  A recent version was able to
 770 automatically detect and configure ONVIF devices, so I could use it to
 771 set up motion detection in and collection of the camera output.  I had
 772 initial problems getting the ONVIF autodetection to work, as both
 773 Firefox and Chromium <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1001188">refused
 774 the inter-tab communication</a> being used by the Zoneminder web
 775 pages, but managed to get konqueror to work.  Apparently the "Enhanced
 776 Tracking Protection" in Firefox cause the problem.  I ended up
 777 upgrading to the Bookworm edition of Zoneminder in the process to try
 778 to fix the issue, and believe the problem might be solved now.</p>
 779
 780 <p>In the process I came across the nice Linux GUI tool
 781 <a href="https://gitlab.com/caspermeijn/onvifviewer/">ONVIF Viewer</a>
 782 allowing me to preview the camera output and validate the login
 783 passwords required.  Sadly its author has grown tired of maintaining
 784 the software, so it might not see any future updates.  Which is sad,
 785 as the viewer is sightly unstable and the picture tend to lock up.
 786 Note, this lockup might be due to limitations in the cameras and not
 787 the viewer implementation.  I suspect the camera is only able to
 788 provide pictures to one client at the time, and the Zoneminder feed
 789 might interfere with the GUI viewer.  I have
 790 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1000820">asked for the tool to be
 791 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 792
 793 <p>Finally, I found what appear to be very nice Linux free software
 794 replacement for the Windows tool, named
 795 <a href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">libonvif</a>.  It
 796 provide a C library to talk to ONVIF devices as well as a command line
 797 and GUI tool using the library.  Using the GUI tool I was able to change
 798 the admin passwords and update other settings of the cameras.  I have
 799 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1021980">asked for the package to be
 800 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 801
 802 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 803 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 804 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 805
 806 <p><strong>Update 2022-10-20</strong>: Since my initial publication of
 807 this text, I got several suggestions for more free software Linux
 808 tools.  There is <a href="https://github.com/quatanium/python-onvif">a
 809 ONVIF python library</a> (already
 810 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/824240">requested into Debian</a>) and
 811 <a href="https://github.com/FalkTannhaeuser/python-onvif-zeep">a python 3
 812 fork</a> using a different SOAP dependency.  There is also
 813 <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/onvif/">support for
 814 ONVIF in Home Assistant</a>, and there is an alternative to Zoneminder
 815 called <a href="https://www.shinobi.video/">Shinobi</a>.  The latter
 816 two are not included in Debian either.  I have not tested any of these
 817 so far.</p>
 818
 819       </div>
 820       <div class="tags">
 821
 822
 823         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 824
 825
 826       </div>
 827     </div>
 828     <div class="padding"></div>
 829
 830     <div class="entry">
 831       <div class="title">
 832         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_translate_the_Bullseye_edition_of_the_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Time to translate the Bullseye edition of the Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
 833       </div>
 834       <div class="date">
 835         12th September 2022
 836       </div>
 837       <div class="body">
 838         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
 839
 840 <p>(The picture is of the previous edition.)</p>
 841
 842 <p>Almost two years after the previous Norwegian Bokmål translation of
 843 the "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 844 Handbook</a>" was published, a new edition is finally being prepared.  The
 845 english text is updated, and it is time to start working on the
 846 translations.  Around 37 percent of the strings have been updated, one
 847 way or another, and the translations starting from a complete Debian Buster
 848 edition now need to bring their translation up from 63% to 100%.  The
 849 complete book is licensed using a Creative Commons license, and has
 850 been published in several languages over the years.  The translations
 851 are done by volunteers to bring Linux in their native tongue.  The
 852 last time I checked, it complete text was available in English,
 853 Norwegian Bokmål, German, Indonesian, Brazil Portuguese and Spanish.
 854 In addition, work has been started for Arabic (Morocco), Catalan,
 855 Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish,
 856 Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish,
 857 Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.</p>
 858
 859 <p>The translation is conducted on
 860 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 861 hosted weblate project page</a>.  Prospective translators are
 862 recommeded to subscribe to
 863 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 864 translators mailing list</a> and should also check out
 865 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 866 contributors</a>.</p>
 867
 868 <p>I am one of the Norwegian Bokmål translators of this book, and we
 869 have just started.  Your contribution is most welcome.</p>
 870
 871 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 872 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 873 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 874
 875       </div>
 876       <div class="tags">
 877
 878
 879         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 880
 881
 882       </div>
 883     </div>
 884     <div class="padding"></div>
 885
 886     <div class="entry">
 887       <div class="title">
 888         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_LinuxCNC_servo_PID_tuning_.html">Automatic LinuxCNC servo PID tuning?</a>
 889       </div>
 890       <div class="date">
 891         16th July 2022
 892       </div>
 893       <div class="body">
 894         <p>While working on a CNC with servo motors controlled by the
 895 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>
 896 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller">PID
 897 controller</a>, I recently had to learn how to tune the collection of values
 898 that control such mathematical machinery that a PID controller is.  It
 899 proved to be a lot harder than I hoped, and I still have not succeeded
 900 in getting the Z PID controller to successfully defy gravity, nor X
 901 and Y to move accurately and reliably.  But while climbing up this
 902 rather steep learning curve, I discovered that some motor control
 903 systems are able to tune their PID controllers.  I got the impression
 904 from the documentation that LinuxCNC were not.  This proved to be not
 905 true.</p>
 906
 907 <p>The LinuxCNC
 908 <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/pid.9.html">pid
 909 component</a> is the recommended PID controller to use.  It uses eight
 910 constants <tt>Pgain</tt>, <tt>Igain</tt>, <tt>Dgain</tt>,
 911 <tt>bias</tt>, <tt>FF0</tt>, <tt>FF1</tt>, <tt>FF2</tt> and
 912 <tt>FF3</tt> to calculate the output value based on current and wanted
 913 state, and all of these need to have a sensible value for the
 914 controller to behave properly.  Note, there are even more values
 915 involved, theser are just the most important ones.  In my case I need
 916 the X, Y and Z axes to follow the requested path with little error.
 917 This has proved quite a challenge for someone who have never tuned a
 918 PID controller before, but there is at least some help to be found.
 919
 920 <p>I discovered that included in LinuxCNC was this old PID component
 921 at_pid claiming to have auto tuning capabilities.  Sadly it had been
 922 neglected since 2011, and could not be used as a plug in replacement
 923 for the default pid component.  One would have to rewriting the
 924 LinuxCNC HAL setup to test at_pid.  This was rather sad, when I wanted
 925 to quickly test auto tuning to see if it did a better job than me at
 926 figuring out good P, I and D values to use.</p>
 927
 928 <p>I decided to have a look if the situation could be improved.  This
 929 involved trying to understand the code and history of the pid and
 930 at_pid components.  Apparently they had a common ancestor, as code
 931 structure, comments and variable names were quite close to each other.
 932 Sadly this was not reflected in the git history, making it hard to
 933 figure out what really happened.  My guess is that the author of
 934 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/at_pid.c">at_pid.c</a>
 935 took a version of
 936 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/pid.c">pid.c</a>,
 937 rewrote it to follow the structure he wished pid.c to have, then added
 938 support for auto tuning and finally got it included into the LinuxCNC
 939 repository.  The restructuring and lack of early history made it
 940 harder to figure out which part of the code were relevant to the auto
 941 tuning, and which part of the code needed to be updated to work the
 942 same way as the current pid.c implementation.  I started by trying to
 943 isolate relevant changes in pid.c, and applying them to at_pid.c.  My
 944 aim was to make sure the at_pid component could replace the pid
 945 component with a simple change in the HAL setup loadrt line, without
 946 having to "rewire" the rest of the HAL configuration.  After a few
 947 hours following this approach, I had learned quite a lot about the
 948 code structure of both components, while concluding I was heading down
 949 the wrong rabbit hole, and should get back to the surface and find a
 950 different path.</p>
 951
 952 <p>For the second attempt, I decided to throw away all the PID control
 953 related part of the original at_pid.c, and instead isolate and lift
 954 the auto tuning part of the code and inject it into a copy of pid.c.
 955 This ensured compatibility with the current pid component, while
 956 adding auto tuning as a run time option.  To make it easier to identify
 957 the relevant parts in the future, I wrapped all the auto tuning code
 958 with '#ifdef AUTO_TUNER'.  The end result behave just like the current
 959 pid component by default, as that part of the code is identical.  The
 960 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/1820">end result
 961 entered the LinuxCNC master branch</a> a few days ago.</p>
 962
 963 <p>To enable auto tuning, one need to set a few HAL pins in the PID
 964 component.  The most important ones are <tt>tune-effort</tt>,
 965 <tt>tune-mode</tt> and <tt>tune-start</tt>.  But lets take a step
 966 back, and see what the auto tuning code will do.  I do not know the
 967 mathematical foundation of the at_pid algorithm, but from observation
 968 I can tell that the algorithm will, when enabled, produce a square
 969 wave pattern centered around the <tt>bias</tt> value on the output pin
 970 of the PID controller.  This can be seen using the HAL Scope provided
 971 by LinuxCNC.  In my case, this is translated into voltage (+-10V) sent
 972 to the motor controller, which in turn is translated into motor speed.
 973 So at_pid will ask the motor to move the axis back and forth.  The
 974 number of cycles in the pattern is controlled by the
 975 <tt>tune-cycles</tt> pin, and the extremes of the wave pattern is
 976 controlled by the <tt>tune-effort</tt> pin.  Of course, trying to
 977 change the direction of a physical object instantly (as in going
 978 directly from a positive voltage to the equivalent negative voltage)
 979 do not change velocity instantly, and it take some time for the object
 980 to slow down and move in the opposite direction.  This result in a
 981 more smooth movement wave form, as the axis in question were vibrating
 982 back and forth.  When the axis reached the target speed in the
 983 opposing direction, the auto tuner change direction again.  After
 984 several of these changes, the average time delay between the 'peaks'
 985 and 'valleys' of this movement graph is then used to calculate
 986 proposed values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain, and insert them into the
 987 HAL model to use by the pid controller.  The auto tuned settings are
 988 not great, but htye work a lot better than the values I had been able
 989 to cook up on my own, at least for the horizontal X and Y axis.  But I
 990 had to use very small <tt>tune-effort<tt> values, as my motor
 991 controllers error out if the voltage change too quickly.  I've been
 992 less lucky with the Z axis, which is moving a heavy object up and
 993 down, and seem to confuse the algorithm.  The Z axis movement became a
 994 lot better when I introduced a <tt>bias</tt> value to counter the
 995 gravitational drag, but I will have to work a lot more on the Z axis
 996 PID values.</p>
 997
 998 <p>Armed with this knowledge, it is time to look at how to do the
 999 tuning.  Lets say the HAL configuration in question load the PID
1000 component for X, Y and Z like this:</p>
1001
1002 <blockquote><pre>
1003 loadrt pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
1004 </pre></blockquote>
1005
1006 <p>Armed with the new and improved at_pid component, the new line will
1007 look like this:</p>
1008
1009 <blockquote><pre>
1010 loadrt at_pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
1011 </pre></blockquote>
1012
1013 <p>The rest of the HAL setup can stay the same.  This work because the
1014 components are referenced by name.  If the component had used count=3
1015 instead, all use of pid.# had to be changed to at_pid.#.</p>
1016
1017 <p>To start tuning the X axis, move the axis to the middle of its
1018 range, to make sure it do not hit anything when it start moving back
1019 and forth.  Next, set the <tt>tune-effort</tt> to a low number in the
1020 output range.  I used 0.1 as my initial value.  Next, assign 1 to the
1021 <tt>tune-mode</tt> value. Note, this will disable the pid controlling
1022 part and feed 0 to the output pin, which in my case initially caused a
1023 lot of drift.  In my case it proved to be a good idea with X and Y to
1024 tune the motor driver to make sure 0 voltage stopped the motor
1025 rotation.  On the other hand, for the Z axis this proved to be a bad
1026 idea, so it will depend on your setup.  It might help to set the
1027 <tt>bias</tt> value to a output value that reduce or eliminate the
1028 axis drift.  Finally, after setting <tt>tune-mode</tt>, set
1029 <tt>tune-start</tt> to 1 to activate the auto tuning.  If all go well,
1030 your axis will vibrate for a few seconds and when it is done, new
1031 values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain will be active.  To test them,
1032 change <tt>tune-mode</tt> back to 0.  Note that this might cause the
1033 machine to suddenly jerk as it bring the axis back to its commanded
1034 position, which it might have drifted away from during tuning.  To
1035 summarize with some halcmd lines:</p>
1036
1037 <blockquote><pre>
1038 setp pid.x.tune-effort 0.1
1039 setp pid.x.tune-mode 1
1040 setp pid.x.tune-start 1
1041 # wait for the tuning to complete
1042 setp pid.x.tune-mode 0
1043 </pre></blockquote>
1044
1045 <p>After doing this task quite a few times while trying to figure out
1046 how to properly tune the PID controllers on the machine in, I decided
1047 to figure out if this process could be automated, and wrote a script
1048 to do the entire tuning process from power on.  The end result will
1049 ensure the machine is powered on and ready to run, home all axis if it
1050 is not already done, check that the extra tuning pins are available,
1051 move the axis to its mid point, run the auto tuning and re-enable the
1052 pid controller when it is done.  It can be run several times.  Check
1053 out the
1054 <a href="https://github.com/SebKuzminsky/MazakVQC1540/blob/bon-dev/scripts/run-auto-pid-tuner">run-auto-pid-tuner</a>
1055 script on github if you want to learn how it is done.</p>
1056
1057 <p>My hope is that this little adventure can inspire someone who know
1058 more about motor PID controller tuning can implement even better
1059 algorithms for automatic PID tuning in LinuxCNC, making life easier
1060 for both me and all the others that want to use LinuxCNC but lack the
1061 in depth knowledge needed to tune PID controllers well.</p>
1062
1063 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1064 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1065 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1066
1067       </div>
1068       <div class="tags">
1069
1070
1071         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1072
1073
1074       </div>
1075     </div>
1076     <div class="padding"></div>
1077
1078     <div class="entry">
1079       <div class="title">
1080         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_translators_life_just_got_a_bit_easier.html">LinuxCNC translators life just got a bit easier</a>
1081       </div>
1082       <div class="date">
1083          3rd June 2022
1084       </div>
1085       <div class="body">
1086         <p>Back in oktober last year, when I started looking at the
1087 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a> system, I
1088 proposed to change the documentation build system make life easier for
1089 translators.  The original system consisted of independently written
1090 documentation files for each language, with no automated way to track
1091 changes done in other translations and no help for the translators to
1092 know how much was left to translated.  By using
1093 <a href="https://po4a.org/">the po4a system</a> to generate POT and PO
1094 files from the English documentation, this can be improved.  A small
1095 team of LinuxCNC contributors got together and today our labour
1096 finally payed off.  Since a few hours ago, it is now possible to
1097 translate <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/linuxcnc/">the
1098 LinuxCNC documentation on Weblate</a>, alongside the program itself.</p>
1099
1100 <p>The effort to migrate the documentation to use po4a has been both
1101 slow and frustrating.  I am very happy we finally made it.</p>
1102
1103 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1104 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1105 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1106
1107       </div>
1108       <div class="tags">
1109
1110
1111         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1112
1113
1114       </div>
1115     </div>
1116     <div class="padding"></div>
1117
1118     <div class="entry">
1119       <div class="title">
1120         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/geteltorito_make_CD_firmware_upgrades_a_breeze.html">geteltorito make CD firmware upgrades a breeze</a>
1121       </div>
1122       <div class="date">
1123         20th April 2022
1124       </div>
1125       <div class="body">
1126         <p>Recently I wanted to upgrade the firmware of my thinkpad, and
1127 located the firmware download page from Lenovo (which annoyingly do
1128 not allow access via Tor, forcing me to hand them more personal
1129 information that I would like).  The
1130 <a href="https://support.lenovo.com/no/en/search?query=thinkpad firmware bios upgrade iso&SearchType=Customer search&searchLocation=Masthead">download
1131 from Lenovo</a> is a bootable ISO image, which is a bit of a problem
1132 when all I got available is a USB memory stick.  I tried booting the
1133 ISO as a USB stick, but this did not work.  But genisoimage came to
1134 the rescue.</p>
1135
1136 <P>The geteltorito program in
1137 <a href="http://tracker.debian.org/cdrkit">the genisoimage binary
1138 package</a> is able to convert the bootable ISO image to a bootable
1139 USB stick using a simple command line recipe, which I then can write
1140 to the most recently inserted USB stick:</p>
1141
1142 <blockquote><pre>
1143 geteltorito -o usbstick.img lenovo-firmware.iso
1144 sudo dd bs=10M if=usbstick.img of=$(ls -tr /dev/sd?|tail -1)
1145 </pre></blockquote>
1146
1147 <p>This USB stick booted the firmware upgrader just fine, and in a few
1148 minutes my machine had the latest and greatest BIOS firmware in place.</p>
1149
1150       </div>
1151       <div class="tags">
1152
1153
1154         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1155
1156
1157       </div>
1158     </div>
1159     <div class="padding"></div>
1160
1161     <div class="entry">
1162       <div class="title">
1163         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Run_your_industrial_metal_working_machine_using_Debian_.html">Run your industrial metal working machine using Debian?</a>
1164       </div>
1165       <div class="date">
1166          2nd March 2022
1167       </div>
1168       <div class="body">
1169         <p>After many months of hard work by the good people involved in
1170 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>, the
1171 system was accepted Sunday
1172 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linuxcnc">into Debian</a>.
1173 Once it was available from Debian, I was surprised to discover from
1174 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=linuxcnc">its
1175 popularity-contest numbers</a> that people have been reporting its use
1176 since 2012.  <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/">Its project site</a> might
1177 be a good place to check out, but sadly is not working when visiting
1178 via Tor.</p>
1179
1180 <p>But what is LinuxCNC, you are probably wondering?  Perhaps a
1181 Wikipedia quote is in place?</p>
1182
1183 <blockquote>
1184 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
1185 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
1186 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
1187 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
1188 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
1189 interactive development)."
1190 </blockquote>
1191
1192 <p>It can even control 3D printers.  And even though the Wikipedia
1193 page indicate that it can only work with hard real time kernel
1194 features, it can also work with the user space soft real time features
1195 provided by the Debian kernel.
1196 <a href="https://github.com/linuxcnc/linuxcnc">The source code</a> is
1197 available from Github.  The last few months I've been involved in the
1198 translation setup for the program and documentation.  Translators are
1199 most welcome to
1200 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/linuxcnc/">join the
1201 effort</a> using Weblate.</p>
1202
1203 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1204 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1205 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1206
1207       </div>
1208       <div class="tags">
1209
1210
1211         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1212
1213
1214       </div>
1215     </div>
1216     <div class="padding"></div>
1217
1218     <div class="entry">
1219       <div class="title">
1220         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_still_an_excellent_choice_for_Lego_builders.html">Debian still an excellent choice for Lego builders</a>
1221       </div>
1222       <div class="date">
1223         24th October 2021
1224       </div>
1225       <div class="body">
1226         <p>The Debian Lego team saw a lot of activity the last few weeks.  All
1227 the packages under the team umbrella has been updated to fix
1228 packaging, lintian issues and BTS reports.  In addition, a new and
1229 inspiring team member appeared on both the
1230 <a href="https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-lego-team">debian-lego-team
1231 Team mailing list</a> and
1232 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC channel
1233 #debian-lego</a>.  If you are interested in Lego CAD design and LEGO
1234 Mindstorms programming, check out the
1235 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">team wiki page</a> to
1236 see what Debian can offer the Lego enthusiast.</p>
1237
1238 <p>Patches has been sent upstream, causing new upstream releases, one
1239 even the first one in more than ten years, and old upstreams was
1240 released with new ones.  There are still a lot of work left, and the
1241 team welcome more members to help us make sure Debian is the Linux
1242 distribution of choice for Lego builders.  If you want to contribute,
1243 join us in the IRC channel and become part of
1244 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian-lego-team/">the team on
1245 Salsa</a>.</p>
1246
1247 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1248 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1249 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1250
1251       </div>
1252       <div class="tags">
1253
1254
1255         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1256
1257
1258       </div>
1259     </div>
1260     <div class="padding"></div>
1261
1262     <div class="entry">
1263       <div class="title">
1264         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Six_complete_translations_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_for_Buster.html">Six complete translations of The Debian Administrator's Handbook for Buster</a>
1265       </div>
1266       <div class="date">
1267          5th July 2021
1268       </div>
1269       <div class="body">
1270         <p>I am happy observe that the <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The
1271 Debian Administrator's Handbook</a> is available in six languages now.
1272 I am not sure which one of these are completely proof read, but the
1273 complete book is available in these languages:
1274
1275 <ul>
1276
1277 <li>English</li>
1278 <li>Norwegian Bokmål</li>
1279 <li>German</li>
1280 <li>Indonesian</li>
1281 <li>Brazil Portuguese</li>
1282 <li>Spanish</li>
1283
1284 </ul>
1285
1286 <p>This is the list of languages more than 70% complete, in other
1287 words with not too much left to do:</p>
1288
1289 <ul>
1290
1291 <li>Chinese (Simplified) - 90%</li>
1292 <li>French - 79%</li>
1293 <li>Italian - 79%</li>
1294 <li>Japanese - 77%</li>
1295 <li>Arabic (Morocco) - 75%</li>
1296 <li>Persian - 71%</li>
1297
1298 </ul>
1299
1300 <p>I wonder how long it will take to bring these to 100%.</p>
1301
1302 <p>Then there is the list of languages about halfway done:</p>
1303
1304 <ul>
1305
1306 <li>Russian - 63%</li>
1307 <li>Swedish - 53%</li>
1308 <li>Chinese (Traditional) - 46%</li>
1309 <li>Catalan - 45%</li>
1310
1311 </ul>
1312
1313 <p>Several are on to a good start:</p>
1314
1315 <ul>
1316
1317 <li>Dutch - 26%</li>
1318 <li>Vietnamese - 25%</li>
1319 <li>Polish - 23%</li>
1320 <li>Czech - 22%</li>
1321 <li>Turkish - 18%</li>
1322
1323 </ul>
1324
1325 <p>Finally, there are the ones just getting started:</p>
1326
1327 <ul>
1328
1329 <li>Korean - 4%</li>
1330 <li>Croatian - 2%</li>
1331 <li>Greek - 2%</li>
1332 <li>Danish - 1%</li>
1333 <li>Romanian - 1%</li>
1334
1335 </ul>
1336
1337 <p>If you want to help provide a Debian instruction book in your own
1338 language, visit
1339 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/#languages">Weblate</a>
1340 to contribute to the translations.</p>
1341
1342 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1343 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1344 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1345
1346       </div>
1347       <div class="tags">
1348
1349
1350         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1351
1352
1353       </div>
1354     </div>
1355     <div class="padding"></div>
1356
1357     <div class="entry">
1358       <div class="title">
1359         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Latest_Jami_back_in_Debian_Testing__and_scriptable_using_dbus.html">Latest Jami back in Debian Testing, and scriptable using dbus</a>
1360       </div>
1361       <div class="date">
1362         12th January 2021
1363       </div>
1364       <div class="body">
1365         <p>After a lot of hard work by its maintainer Alexandre Viau and
1366 others, the decentralized communication platform
1367 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>
1368 (earlier known as Ring), managed to get
1369 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">its latest version</a>
1370 into Debian Testing.  Several of its dependencies has caused build and
1371 propagation problems, which all seem to be solved now.</p>
1372
1373 <p>In addition to the fact that Jami is decentralized, similar to how
1374 bittorrent is decentralized, I first of all like how it is not
1375 connected to external IDs like phone numbers.  This allow me to set up
1376 computers to send me notifications using Jami without having to find
1377 get a phone number for each computer.  Automatic notification via Jami
1378 is also made trivial thanks to the provided client side API (as a DBus
1379 service).  Here is my bourne shell script demonstrating how to let any
1380 system send a message to any Jami address.  It will create a new
1381 identity before sending the message, if no Jami identity exist
1382 already:</p>
1383
1384 <p><pre>
1385 #!/bin/sh
1386 #
1387 # Usage: $0 <jami-address> <message>
1388 #
1389 # Send <message> to <jami-address>, create local jami account if
1390 # missing.
1391 #
1392 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice
1393 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
1394
1395
1396 if [ -z "$HOME" ] ; then
1397     echo "error: missing \$HOME, required for dbus to work"
1398     exit 1
1399 fi
1400
1401 # First, get dbus running if not already running
1402 DBUSLAUNCH=/usr/bin/dbus-launch
1403 PIDFILE=/run/asterisk/dbus-session.pid
1404 if [ -e $PIDFILE ] ; then
1405     . $PIDFILE
1406     if ! kill -0 $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID 2>/dev/null ; then
1407         unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1408     fi
1409 fi
1410 if [ -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ] && [ -x "$DBUSLAUNCH" ]; then
1411     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=$HOME/.dbus"
1412     dbus-daemon --session --address="$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" --nofork --nopidfile --syslog-only < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 3>&1 &
1413     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$!
1414     (
1415         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID
1416         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=\""$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"\"
1417         echo export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1418     ) > $PIDFILE
1419     . $PIDFILE
1420 fi &
1421
1422 dringop() {
1423     part="$1"; shift
1424     op="$1"; shift
1425     dbus-send --session \
1426         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1427 }
1428
1429 dringopreply() {
1430     part="$1"; shift
1431     op="$1"; shift
1432     dbus-send --session --print-reply \
1433         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1434 }
1435
1436 firstaccount() {
1437     dringopreply ConfigurationManager getAccountList | \
1438       grep string | awk -F'"' '{print $2}' | head -n 1
1439 }
1440
1441 account=$(firstaccount)
1442
1443 if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1444     echo "Missing local account, trying to create it"
1445     dringop ConfigurationManager addAccount \
1446       dict:string:string:"Account.type","RING","Account.videoEnabled","false"
1447     account=$(firstaccount)
1448     if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1449         echo "unable to create local account"
1450         exit 1
1451     fi
1452 fi
1453
1454 # Not using dringopreply to ensure $2 can contain spaces
1455 dbus-send --print-reply --session \
1456   --dest=cx.ring.Ring \
1457   /cx/ring/Ring/ConfigurationManager \
1458   cx.ring.Ring.ConfigurationManager.sendTextMessage \
1459   string:"$account" string:"$1" \
1460   dict:string:string:"text/plain","$2"
1461 </pre></p>
1462
1463 <p>If you want to check it out yourself, visit the
1464 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system project page</a> to learn
1465 more, and install the latest Jami client from Debian Unstable or
1466 Testing.</p>
1467
1468 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1469 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1470 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1471
1472       </div>
1473       <div class="tags">
1474
1475
1476         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1477
1478
1479       </div>
1480     </div>
1481     <div class="padding"></div>
1482
1483     <div class="entry">
1484       <div class="title">
1485         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_based_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Buster based Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1486       </div>
1487       <div class="date">
1488         20th October 2020
1489       </div>
1490       <div class="body">
1491         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
1492
1493 <p>I am happy to report that we finally made it!  Norwegian Bokmål
1494 became the first translation published on paper of the new Buster
1495 based edition of "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
1496 Administrator's Handbook</a>".  The print proof reading copy arrived
1497 some days ago, and it looked good, so now the book is approved for
1498 general distribution.  This updated paperback edition <a
1499 href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available from
1500 lulu.com</a>.  The book is also available for download in electronic
1501 form as PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, and can also be
1502 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online</a>.</p>
1503
1504 <p>I am very happy to wrap up this Creative Common licensed project,
1505 which concludes several months of work by several volunteers. The
1506 number of Linux related books published in Norwegian are few, and I
1507 really hope this one will gain many readers, as it is packed with deep
1508 knowledge on Linux and the Debian ecosystem.  The book will be
1509 available for various Internet book stores like Amazon and Barnes &
1510 Noble soon, but I recommend buying
1511 "<a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/roland-mas-and-rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-9j7qwq.html">Håndbok
1512 for Debian-administratoren</a>" directly from the source at Lulu.
1513
1514 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1515 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1516 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1517
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="tags">
1520
1521
1522         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1523
1524
1525       </div>
1526     </div>
1527     <div class="padding"></div>
1528
1529     <div class="entry">
1530       <div class="title">
1531         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_update_of_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_almost_done.html">Buster update of Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook almost done</a>
1532       </div>
1533       <div class="date">
1534         11th September 2020
1535       </div>
1536       <div class="body">
1537         <p>Thanks to the good work of several volunteers, the updated edition
1538 of the Norwegian translation for
1539 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1540 Handbook</a>" is now almost completed.  After many months of proof
1541 reading, I consider the proof reading complete enough for us to move
1542 to the next step, and have asked for the print version to be prepared
1543 and sent of to the print on demand service lulu.com.  While it is
1544 still not to late if you find any incorrect translations on
1545 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1546 hosted Weblate service</a>, but it will be soon. :) You can check out
1547 <a href=" https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">the Buster
1548 edition on the web</a> until the print edition is ready.</p>
1549
1550 <p>The book will be for sale on lulu.com and various web book stores,
1551 with links available from the web site for the book linked to above.
1552 I hope a lot of readers find it useful.</p>
1553
1554 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1555 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1556 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1557
1558       </div>
1559       <div class="tags">
1560
1561
1562         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1563
1564
1565       </div>
1566     </div>
1567     <div class="padding"></div>
1568
1569     <div class="entry">
1570       <div class="title">
1571         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Working_on_updated_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Working on updated Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1572       </div>
1573       <div class="date">
1574          4th July 2020
1575       </div>
1576       <div class="body">
1577         <p>Three years ago, the first Norwegian Bokmål edition of
1578 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1579 Handbook</a>" was published.  This was based on Debian Jessie.  Now a
1580 new and updated version based on Buster is getting ready.  Work on the
1581 updated Norwegian Bokmål edition has been going on for a few months
1582 now, and yesterday, we reached the first mile stone, with 100% of the
1583 texts being translated.  A lot of proof reading remains, of course,
1584 but a major step towards a new edition has been taken.</p>
1585
1586 <p>The book is translated by volunteers, and we would love to get some
1587 help with the proof reading.  The translation uses
1588 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1589 hosted Weblate service</a>, and we welcome everyone to have a look and
1590 submit improvements and suggestions.  There is also a proof readers
1591 PDF available on request, get in touch if you want to help out that
1592 way.</p>
1593
1594 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1595 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1596 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1597
1598       </div>
1599       <div class="tags">
1600
1601
1602         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1603
1604
1605       </div>
1606     </div>
1607     <div class="padding"></div>
1608
1609     <div class="entry">
1610       <div class="title">
1611         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Secure_Socket_API___a_simple_and_powerful_approach_for_TLS_support_in_software.html">Secure Socket API - a simple and powerful approach for TLS support in software</a>
1612       </div>
1613       <div class="date">
1614          6th June 2020
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="body">
1617         <p>As a member of the <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix
1618 User Group</a>, I have the pleasure of receiving the
1619 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a> magazine
1620 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/">;login:</a>
1621 several times a year.  I rarely have time to read all the articles,
1622 but try to at least skim through them all as there is a lot of nice
1623 knowledge passed on there.  I even carry the latest issue with me most
1624 of the time to try to get through all the articles when I have a few
1625 spare minutes.</p>
1626
1627 <p>The other day I came across a nice article titled
1628 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/winter2018/oneill">The
1629 Secure Socket API: TLS as an Operating System Service</a>" with a
1630 marvellous idea I hope can make it all the way into the POSIX standard.
1631 The idea is as simple as it is powerful.  By introducing a new
1632 socket() option IPPROTO_TLS to use TLS, and a system wide service to
1633 handle setting up TLS connections, one both make it trivial to add TLS
1634 support to any program currently using the POSIX socket API, and gain
1635 system wide control over certificates, TLS versions and encryption
1636 systems used.  Instead of doing this:</p>
1637
1638 <p><blockquote><pre>
1639 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
1640 </pre></blockquote></p>
1641
1642 <p>the program code would be doing this:<p>
1643
1644 <p><blockquote><pre>
1645 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TLS);
1646 </pre></blockquote></p>
1647
1648 <p>According to the ;login: article, converting a C program to use TLS
1649 would normally modify only 5-10 lines in the code, which is amazing
1650 when compared to using for example the OpenSSL API.</p>
1651
1652 <p>The project has set up the
1653 <a href="https://securesocketapi.org/">https://securesocketapi.org/</a>
1654 web site to spread the idea, and the code for a kernel module and the
1655 associated system daemon is available from two github repositories:
1656 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa">ssa</a> and
1657 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa-daemon">ssa-daemon</a>.
1658 Unfortunately there is no explicit license information with the code,
1659 so its copyright status is unclear.  A
1660 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa/issues/2">request to solve
1661 this</a> about it has been unsolved since 2018-08-17.</p>
1662
1663 <p>I love the idea of extending socket() to gain TLS support, and
1664 understand why it is an advantage to implement this as a kernel module
1665 and system wide service daemon, but can not help to think that it
1666 would be a lot easier to get projects to move to this way of setting
1667 up TLS if it was done with a user space approach where programs
1668 wanting to use this API approach could just link with a wrapper
1669 library.</p>
1670
1671 <p>I recommend you check out this simple and powerful approach to more
1672 secure network connections. :)</p>
1673
1674 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1675 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1676 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1677
1678       </div>
1679       <div class="tags">
1680
1681
1682         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
1683
1684
1685       </div>
1686     </div>
1687     <div class="padding"></div>
1688
1689     <div class="entry">
1690       <div class="title">
1691         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_as_a_Zoom_client__a_trick_for_password_protected_rooms___.html">Jami as a Zoom client, a trick for password protected rooms...</a>
1692       </div>
1693       <div class="date">
1694          8th May 2020
1695       </div>
1696       <div class="body">
1697         <p>Half a year ago,
1698 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">I
1699 wrote</a> about <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami communication
1700 client</a>, capable of peer-to-peer encrypted communication.  It
1701 handle both messages, audio and video.  It uses distributed hash
1702 tables instead of central infrastructure to connect its users to each
1703 other, which in my book is a plus.  I mentioned briefly that it could
1704 also work as a SIP client, which came in handy when the higher
1705 educational sector in Norway started to promote Zoom as its video
1706 conferencing solution.  I am reluctant to use the official Zoom client
1707 software, due to their <a href="https://zoom.us/terms">copyright
1708 license clauses</a> prohibiting users to reverse engineer (for example
1709 to check the security) and benchmark it, and thus prefer to connect to
1710 Zoom meetings with free software clients.</p>
1711
1712 <p>Jami worked OK as a SIP client to Zoom as long as there was no
1713 password set on the room.  The Jami daemon leak memory like crazy
1714 (approximately 1 GiB a minute) when I am connected to the video
1715 conference, so I had to restart the client every 7-10 minutes, which
1716 is not great.  I tried to get other SIP Linux clients to work
1717 without success, so I decided I would have to live with this wart
1718 until someone managed to fix the leak in the dring code base.  But
1719 another problem showed up once the rooms were password protected.  I
1720 could not get my dial tone signaling through from Jami to Zoom, and
1721 dial tone signaling is used to enter the password when connecting to
1722 Zoom.  I tried a lot of different permutations with my Jami and
1723 Asterisk setup to try to figure out why the signaling did not get
1724 through, only to finally discover that the fundamental problem seem to
1725 be that Zoom is simply not able to receive dial tone signaling when
1726 connecting via SIP.  There seem to be nothing wrong with the Jami and
1727 Asterisk end, it is simply broken in the Zoom end.  I got help from a
1728 very skilled VoIP engineer figuring out this last part.  And being a
1729 very skilled engineer, he was also able to locate a solution for me.
1730 Or to be exact, a workaround that solve my initial problem of
1731 connecting to password protected Zoom rooms using Jami.</p>
1732
1733 <p>So, how do you do this, I am sure you are wondering by now.  The
1734 trick is already
1735 <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202405539-H-323-SIP-Room-Connector-Dial-Strings#sip">documented
1736 from Zoom</a>, and it is to modify the SIP address to include the room
1737 password.  What is most surprising about this is that the
1738 automatically generated email from Zoom with instructions on how to
1739 connect via SIP do not mention this.  The SIP address to use normally
1740 consist of the room ID (a number), an @ character and the IP address
1741 of the Zoom SIP gateway.  But Zoom understand a lot more than just the
1742 room ID in front of the at sign.  The format is "<tt>[Meeting
1743 ID].[Password].[Layout].[Host Key]</tt>", and you can here see how you
1744 can both enter password, control the layout (full screen, active
1745 presence and gallery) and specify the host key to start the meeting.
1746 The full SIP address entered into Jami to provide the password will
1747 then look like this (all using made up numbers):</p>
1748
1749 <p><blockquote>
1750 <tt>sip:657837644.522827@192.168.169.170</tt>
1751 </blockquote></p>
1752
1753 <p>Now if only jami would reduce its memory usage, I could even
1754 recommend this setup to others. :)</p>
1755
1756 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1757 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1758 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1759
1760       </div>
1761       <div class="tags">
1762
1763
1764         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1765
1766
1767       </div>
1768     </div>
1769     <div class="padding"></div>
1770
1771     <div class="entry">
1772       <div class="title">
1773         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/GnuCOBOL__a_free_platform_to_learn_and_use_COBOL___nice_free_software.html">GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software</a>
1774       </div>
1775       <div class="date">
1776         29th April 2020
1777       </div>
1778       <div class="body">
1779         <p>The curiosity got the better of me when
1780 <a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot
1781 reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for
1782 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers,
1783 and a few days later it was reported that
1784 <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM
1785 tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p>
1786
1787 <p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to
1788 learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find
1789 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was
1790 already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in
1791 Debian</a>.  It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler"
1792 transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual
1793 Studio to build binaries.</p>
1794
1795 <p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the
1796 quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer
1797 taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced.  A
1798 new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p>
1799
1800 <p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL
1801 introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs.  It was fun to
1802 learn a new programming language.  If you want to test for yourself,
1803 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia
1804 page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p>
1805
1806 <p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how
1807 standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL
1808 test suite, which sound good to me.  It is nice to know it is possible
1809 to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am
1810 very happy such nice free software project as this is available.  If
1811 you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</p>
1812
1813 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1814 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1815 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1816
1817       </div>
1818       <div class="tags">
1819
1820
1821         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1822
1823
1824       </div>
1825     </div>
1826     <div class="padding"></div>
1827
1828     <div class="entry">
1829       <div class="title">
1830         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">Jami/Ring, finally functioning peer to peer communication client</a>
1831       </div>
1832       <div class="date">
1833         19th June 2019
1834       </div>
1835       <div class="body">
1836         <p>Some years ago, in 2016, I
1837 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">wrote
1838 for the first time about</a> the Ring peer to peer messaging system.
1839 It would provide messaging without any central server coordinating the
1840 system and without requiring all users to register a phone number or
1841 own a mobile phone.  Back then, I could not get it to work, and put it
1842 aside until it had seen more development.  A few days ago I decided to
1843 give it another try, and am happy to report that this time I am able
1844 to not only send and receive messages, but also place audio and video
1845 calls.  But only if UDP is not blocked into your network.</p>
1846
1847 <p>The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
1848 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>.  I
1849 tried doing web search for 'ring' when I discovered it for the first
1850 time, and can only applaud this change as it is impossible to find
1851 something called Ring among the noise of other uses of that word.  Now
1852 you can search for 'jami' and this client and
1853 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system</a> is the first hit at
1854 least on duckduckgo.</p>
1855
1856 <p>Jami will by default encrypt messages as well as audio and video
1857 calls, and try to send them directly between the communicating parties
1858 if possible.  If this proves impossible (for example if both ends are
1859 behind NAT), it will use a central SIP TURN server maintained by the
1860 Jami project.  Jami can also be a normal SIP client.  If the SIP
1861 server is unencrypted, the audio and video calls will also be
1862 unencrypted.  This is as far as I know the only case where Jami will
1863 do anything without encryption.</p>
1864
1865 <p>Jami is available for several platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
1866 Android, iOS, and Android TV.  It is included in Debian already.  Jami
1867 also work for those using F-Droid without any Google connections,
1868 while Signal do not.
1869 <a href="https://git.jami.net/savoirfairelinux/ring-project/wikis/technical/Protocol">The
1870 protocol</a> is described in the Ring project wiki.  The system uses a
1871 distributed hash table (DHT) system (similar to BitTorrent) running
1872 over UDP.  On one of the networks I use, I discovered Jami failed to
1873 work.  I tracked this down to the fact that incoming UDP packages
1874 going to ports 1-49999 were blocked, and the DHT would pick a random
1875 port and end up in the low range most of the time.  After talking to
1876 the developers, I solved this by enabling the dhtproxy in the
1877 settings, thus using TCP to talk to a central DHT proxy instead of
1878
1879 peering directly with others.  I've been told the developers are
1880 working on allowing DHT to use TCP to avoid this problem.  I also ran
1881 into a problem when trying to talk to the version of Ring included in
1882 Debian Stable (Stretch).  Apparently the protocol changed between
1883 beta2 and the current version, making these clients incompatible.
1884 Hopefully the protocol will not be made incompatible in the
1885 future.</p>
1886
1887 <p>It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
1888 came across another communication platform I have not tested yet.  The
1889 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)">Tox protocol</a>
1890 and <a href="https://tox.chat/">family of Tox clients</a>.  It might
1891 become the topic of a future blog post.</p>
1892
1893 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1894 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1895 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1896
1897       </div>
1898       <div class="tags">
1899
1900
1901         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1902
1903
1904       </div>
1905     </div>
1906     <div class="padding"></div>
1907
1908     <div class="entry">
1909       <div class="title">
1910         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Strategispillet_Unknown_Horizons_n__tilgjengelig_p__bokm_l.html">Strategispillet Unknown Horizons nå tilgjengelig på bokmål</a>
1911       </div>
1912       <div class="date">
1913         23rd January 2019
1914       </div>
1915       <div class="body">
1916         <p>I høst ble jeg inspirert til å bidra til oversettelsen av
1917 <a href="http://unknown-horizons.org/">strategispillet Unknown
1918 Horizons</a>, og oversatte de nesten 200 strengene i prosjektet til
1919 bokmål.  Deretter har jeg gått å ventet på at det kom en ny utgave som
1920 inneholdt disse oversettelsene.  Nå er endelig ventetiden over.  Den
1921 nye versjonen kom på nyåret, og ble
1922 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/unknown-horizons">lastet opp i
1923 Debian</a> for noen få dager siden.  I går kveld fikk jeg testet det ut, og
1924 må innrømme at oversettelsene fungerer fint.  Fant noen få tekster som
1925 måtte justeres, men ikke noe alvorlig.  Har oppdatert
1926 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/">oversettelsen på
1927 Weblate</a>, slik at neste utgave vil være enda bedre. :)</p>
1928
1929 <p>Spillet er et ressursstyringsspill ala Civilization, og er morsomt
1930 å spille for oss som liker slikt. :)</p>
1931
1932 <p>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
1933 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
1934 til min adresse
1935 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.
1936 Merk, betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)</p>
1937
1938       </div>
1939       <div class="tags">
1940
1941
1942         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
1943
1944
1945       </div>
1946     </div>
1947     <div class="padding"></div>
1948
1949     <div class="entry">
1950       <div class="title">
1951         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_got_everything_you_need_to_program_Micro_bit.html">Debian now got everything you need to program Micro:bit</a>
1952       </div>
1953       <div class="date">
1954         22nd January 2019
1955       </div>
1956       <div class="body">
1957         <p>I am amazed and very pleased to discover that since a few days ago,
1958 everything you need to program the <a href="https://microbit.org/">BBC
1959 micro:bit</a> is available from the Debian archive.  All this is
1960 thanks to the hard work of Nick Morrott and the Debian python
1961 packaging team.  The micro:bit project recommend the mu-editor to
1962 program the microcomputer, as this editor will take care of all the
1963 machinery required to injekt/flash micropython alongside the program
1964 into the micro:bit, as long as the pieces are available.</p>
1965
1966 <p>There are three main pieces involved.  The first to enter Debian
1967 was
1968 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/python-uflash">python-uflash</a>,
1969 which was accepted into the archive 2019-01-12.  The next one was
1970 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mu-editor">mu-editor</a>, which
1971 showed up 2019-01-13.  The final and hardest part to to into the
1972 archive was
1973 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firmware-microbit-micropython">firmware-microbit-micropython</a>,
1974 which needed to get its build system and dependencies into Debian
1975 before it was accepted 2019-01-20.  The last one is already in Debian
1976 Unstable and should enter Debian Testing / Buster in three days.  This
1977 all allow any user of the micro:bit to get going by simply running
1978 'apt install mu-editor' when using Testing or Unstable, and once
1979 Buster is released as stable, all the users of Debian stable will be
1980 catered for.</p>
1981
1982 <p>As a minor final touch, I added rules to
1983 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">the isenkram
1984 package</a> for recognizing micro:bit and recommend the mu-editor
1985 package.  This make sure any user of the isenkram desktop daemon will
1986 get a popup suggesting to install mu-editor then the USB cable from
1987 the micro:bit is inserted for the first time.</p>
1988
1989 <p>This should make it easier to have fun.</p>
1990
1991 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1992 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1993 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1994
1995       </div>
1996       <div class="tags">
1997
1998
1999         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2000
2001
2002       </div>
2003     </div>
2004     <div class="padding"></div>
2005
2006     <div class="entry">
2007       <div class="title">
2008         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Learn_to_program_with_Minetest_on_Debian.html">Learn to program with Minetest on Debian</a>
2009       </div>
2010       <div class="date">
2011         15th December 2018
2012       </div>
2013       <div class="body">
2014         <p>A fun way to learn how to program
2015 <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> is to follow the
2016 instructions in the book
2017 "<a href="https://nostarch.com/programwithminecraft">Learn to program
2018 with Minecraft</a>", which introduces programming in Python to people
2019 who like to play with Minecraft.  The book uses a Python library to
2020 talk to a TCP/IP socket with an API accepting build instructions and
2021 providing information about the current players in a Minecraft world.
2022 The TCP/IP API was first created for the Minecraft implementation for
2023 Raspberry Pi, and has since been ported to some server versions of
2024 Minecraft.  The book contain recipes for those using Windows, MacOSX
2025 and Raspian.  But a little known fact is that you can follow the same
2026 recipes using the free software construction game
2027 <a href="https://minetest.net/">Minetest</a>.</p>
2028
2029 <p>There is <a href="https://github.com/sprintingkiwi/pycraft_mod">a
2030 Minetest module implementing the same API</a>, making it possible to
2031 use the Python programs coded to talk to Minecraft with Minetest too.
2032 I
2033 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/minetest-mod-pycraft_0.20%2Bgit20180331.0376a0a%2Bdfsg-1.html">uploaded
2034 this module</a> to Debian two weeks ago, and as soon as it clears the
2035 FTP masters NEW queue, learning to program Python with Minetest on
2036 Debian will be a simple 'apt install' away.  The Debian package is
2037 maintained as part of the Debian Games team, and
2038 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/unfinished/minetest-mod-pycraft">the
2039 packaging rules</a> are currently located under 'unfinished' on
2040 Salsa.</p>
2041
2042 <p>You will most likely need to install several of the Minetest
2043 modules in Debian for the examples included with the library to work
2044 well, as there are several blocks used by the example scripts that are
2045 provided via modules in Minetest.  Without the required blocks, a
2046 simple stone block is used instead.  My initial testing with a analog
2047 clock did not get gold arms as instructed in the python library, but
2048 instead used stone arms.</p>
2049
2050 <p>I tried to find a way to add the API to the desktop version of
2051 Minecraft, but were unable to find any working recipes.  The
2052 <a href="https://www.epiphanydigest.com/tag/minecraft-python-api/">recipes</a>
2053 I <a href="https://github.com/kbsriram/mcpiapi">found</a> are only
2054 working with a standalone Minecraft server setup.  Are there any
2055 options to use with the normal desktop version?</p>
2056
2057 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2058 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2059 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2060
2061       </div>
2062       <div class="tags">
2063
2064
2065         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2066
2067
2068       </div>
2069     </div>
2070     <div class="padding"></div>
2071
2072     <div class="entry">
2073       <div class="title">
2074         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_an_official_MIME_type_for_patches_.html">Time for an official MIME type for patches?</a>
2075       </div>
2076       <div class="date">
2077          1st November 2018
2078       </div>
2079       <div class="body">
2080         <p>As part of my involvement in
2081 <a href="https://gitlab.com/OsloMet-ABI/nikita-noark5-core">the Nikita
2082 archive API project</a>, I've been importing a fairly large lump of
2083 emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would
2084 go.  I picked a subset of <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">my
2085 notmuch email database</a>, all public emails sent to me via
2086 @lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import.
2087 In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in
2088 these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed
2089 that one of the most common attachment formats do not have
2090 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">an
2091 official MIME type</a> registered with IANA/IETF.  The output from
2092 diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats
2093 included in these emails.  At the moment people seem to use either
2094 text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered.  It
2095 would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used
2096 everywhere.</p>
2097
2098 <p>To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought
2099 up the topic on
2100 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/media-types">the
2101 media-types mailing list</a>.  If you are interested in discussion
2102 which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in
2103 making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like
2104 to join the discussion?</p>
2105
2106 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2107 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2108 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2109
2110       </div>
2111       <div class="tags">
2112
2113
2114         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
2115
2116
2117       </div>
2118     </div>
2119     <div class="padding"></div>
2120
2121     <div class="entry">
2122       <div class="title">
2123         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Google_Drive_sync_using_grive_in_Debian.html">Automatic Google Drive sync using grive in Debian</a>
2124       </div>
2125       <div class="date">
2126          4th October 2018
2127       </div>
2128       <div class="body">
2129         <p>A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian.  To try to
2130 rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive.
2131 I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this
2132 automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from
2133 <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/">the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA</a> to do the
2134 task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to
2135 run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync.
2136 Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.</p>
2137
2138 <p>I first created <tt>~/googledrive</tt>, entered the directory and
2139 ran '<tt>grive -a</tt>' to authenticate the machine/user.  Next, I
2140 created a autostart hook in <tt>~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop</tt>
2141 to start the sync when the user log in:</p>
2142
2143 <p><blockquote><pre>
2144 [Desktop Entry]
2145 Name=Google drive autosync
2146 Type=Application
2147 Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
2148 </pre></blockquote></p>
2149
2150 <p>Finally, I wrote the <tt>~/bin/grive-sync</tt> script to sync
2151 ~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.</p>
2152
2153 <p><blockquote><pre>
2154 #!/bin/sh
2155 set -e
2156 cd ~/
2157 cleanup() {
2158     if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
2159         kill $syncpid
2160     fi
2161 }
2162 trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
2163 /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
2164 syncpdi=$!
2165 while true; do
2166     if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
2167         echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
2168         exit 1
2169     fi
2170     if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
2171         /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
2172     fi
2173     sleep 300
2174 done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
2175 </pre></blockquote></p>
2176
2177 <p>Feel free to use the setup if you want.  It can be assumed to be
2178 GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I
2179 doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.</p>
2180
2181 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2182 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2183 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2184
2185       </div>
2186       <div class="tags">
2187
2188
2189         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2190
2191
2192       </div>
2193     </div>
2194     <div class="padding"></div>
2195
2196     <div class="entry">
2197       <div class="title">
2198         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html">Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</a>
2199       </div>
2200       <div class="date">
2201          2nd September 2018
2202       </div>
2203       <div class="body">
2204         <p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
2205 tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
2206 insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
2207 web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
2208 to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
2209 available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
2210 have check out a nice cover band.</p>
2211
2212 <p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2213   --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
2214   "params": {"item": { "file":
2215   "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
2216   http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
2217
2218 <p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
2219 first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
2220 and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
2221 Chromecast. :)</p>
2222
2223 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2224 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2225 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2226
2227       </div>
2228       <div class="tags">
2229
2230
2231         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2232
2233
2234       </div>
2235     </div>
2236     <div class="padding"></div>
2237
2238     <div class="entry">
2239       <div class="title">
2240         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sharing_images_with_friends_and_family_using_RSS_and_EXIF_XMP_metadata.html">Sharing images with friends and family using RSS and EXIF/XMP metadata</a>
2241       </div>
2242       <div class="date">
2243         31st July 2018
2244       </div>
2245       <div class="body">
2246         <p>For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images
2247 with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to
2248 place images from my personal life under the control of strangers
2249 working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox.  The last few days I
2250 have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to
2251 share it with you.  I would like to publish images on a server under
2252 my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some
2253 free and open standard to the images I published.  As my primary
2254 language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using
2255 UTF-8.  Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable
2256 of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the
2257 &lt;enclosure&gt; RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier
2258 of such frames.  In the end I gave up that approach.</p>
2259
2260 <p>Some months ago, I discovered that
2261 <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">XScreensaver</a> is able to
2262 read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on
2263 my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from
2264 NASA.  This proved to work well.  More recently I discovered that
2265 <a href="https://kodi.tv">Kodi</a> (both using
2266 <a href="https://www.openelec.tv/">OpenELEC</a> and
2267 <a href="https://libreelec.tv">LibreELEC</a>) provide the
2268 <a href="https://github.com/grinsted/script.screensaver.feedreader">Feedreader</a>
2269 screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news.  For
2270 fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up
2271 a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a
2272 screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.</p>
2273
2274 <p>Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate
2275 a RSS feed for the Kodi instance.  I adjusted my <a
2276 href="https://freedombox.org/">Freedombox</a> instance, created
2277 /var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract
2278 title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the
2279 RSS file.  I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the
2280 libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP
2281 tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not.  The relevant EXIF
2282 tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives.  XMP
2283 seem to have the support I need.</p>
2284
2285 <p>I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to
2286 use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software
2287 photo managing software.  I ended up using the tags set using this
2288 exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:</p>
2289
2290 <blockquote><pre>
2291 exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
2292   -description='The RSS image description.' \
2293   -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
2294 </pre></blockquote>
2295
2296 <p>I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were
2297 invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject".  I
2298 use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be
2299 shared with my family.  Images with this keyword set are located and
2300 copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.</p>
2301
2302 <p>Are there better ways to do this?  Get in touch if you have better
2303 suggestions.</p>
2304
2305 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2306 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2307 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2308
2309       </div>
2310       <div class="tags">
2311
2312
2313         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2314
2315
2316       </div>
2317     </div>
2318     <div class="padding"></div>
2319
2320     <div class="entry">
2321       <div class="title">
2322         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</a>
2323       </div>
2324       <div class="date">
2325         12th July 2018
2326       </div>
2327       <div class="body">
2328         <p>Last night, I wrote
2329 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
2330 recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
2331 During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
2332 suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
2333 approach requiring no setup at all.  It is a single script that take
2334 care of it all.</p>
2335
2336 <p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
2337 desktop and stream it to Kodi.  This fixed the video quality issue I
2338 saw initially.  It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
2339 Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
2340 <a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
2341 Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
2342 GStreamer.  Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial.  Copy
2343 the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
2344 server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
2345 up on the Kodi screen.  Note, it depend on multicast on the local
2346 network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
2347 script must be modified.  Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
2348 I only care about the picture part.</p>
2349
2350 <blockquote><pre>
2351 #!/bin/sh
2352 #
2353 # Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi.  See
2354 # http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
2355 # for backgorund information.
2356
2357 # Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
2358 # killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
2359 # kodi server).  Do the same when interrupting this script.
2360 kodicmd() {
2361     host="$1"
2362     cmd="$2"
2363     params="$3"
2364     curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2365          --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
2366          "http://$host/jsonrpc"
2367 }
2368 cleanup() {
2369     if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
2370         # Stop the playing when we end
2371         playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
2372                             jq .result[].playerid)
2373         kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
2374     fi
2375     if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
2376         kill "$gstpid"
2377     fi
2378 }
2379 trap cleanup EXIT INT
2380
2381 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
2382     kodihost=$1
2383     shift
2384 else
2385     kodihost=kodi.local
2386 fi
2387
2388 mcast=239.255.0.1
2389 mcastport=1234
2390 mcastttl=1
2391
2392 pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
2393   cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
2394 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2395   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2396   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2397   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2398   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2399   udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2400   pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
2401   > /dev/null 2>&1 &
2402 gstpid=$!
2403
2404 # Give stream a second to get going
2405 sleep 1
2406
2407 # Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
2408 kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
2409         "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
2410
2411 # wait for gst to end
2412 wait "$gstpid"
2413 </pre></blockquote>
2414
2415 <p>I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.</p>
2416
2417 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2418 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2419 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2420
2421       </div>
2422       <div class="tags">
2423
2424
2425         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2426
2427
2428       </div>
2429     </div>
2430     <div class="padding"></div>
2431
2432     <div class="entry">
2433       <div class="title">
2434         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</a>
2435       </div>
2436       <div class="date">
2437         12th July 2018
2438       </div>
2439       <div class="body">
2440         <p>PS: See
2441 <ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
2442 followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
2443
2444 <p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
2445 my projector connected to Kodi.  I sadly had to admit that I had no
2446 idea, as it was a task I never had tried.  Since then, I have been
2447 looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
2448 install on either side.  Today I found a way that seem to kind of
2449 work.  Not great, but it is a start.</p>
2450
2451 <p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
2452 <a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
2453 DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
2454 local storage enough to store the stream locally.  This is not going
2455 to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
2456 impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
2457
2458 <p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
2459 video stream that Kodi could play.  Preferably using
2460 broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
2461 side when starting such stream.  Unfortunately, the only recipe I
2462 could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
2463 seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
2464
2465 <p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working!  Unfortunately I
2466 have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
2467 sending command and the file on the Kodi server.  But it is showing my
2468 desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
2469 the programs I work on.</p>
2470
2471 <p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
2472 rtp and rtsp recipes from
2473 <a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
2474 VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
2475 this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
2476
2477 <blockquote><pre>
2478 vlc screen:// --sout \
2479   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
2480 </pre></blockquote>
2481
2482 <p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
2483 same IP address:</p>
2484
2485 <blockquote><pre>
2486 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
2487   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2488 </pre></blockquote>
2489
2490 <p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address.  As far
2491 as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work.  In other
2492 words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
2493 to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
2494 recipe.  To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
2495 file while the VLC stream is running.  The desktop then show up in my
2496 big screen. :)</p>
2497
2498 <p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
2499 the audio quality is really bad.  No idea if the problem is package
2500 loss or bad parameters for the transcode.  I do not know VLC nor Kodi
2501 enough to tell.</p>
2502
2503 <p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
2504 succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The "screen:"
2505 input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
2506 package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
2507 message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'.  Check the log
2508 for details."  He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
2509 of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
2510 It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
2511 window in the desktop view.  In sum, this give us this command line on
2512 the source end
2513
2514 <blockquote><pre>
2515 cvlc screen:// --sout \
2516   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
2517 </pre></blockquote>
2518
2519 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2520
2521 <blockquote><pre>
2522 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
2523   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2524 </pre></blockquote>
2525
2526 <p>Still bad image quality, though.  But I did discover that streaming
2527 a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
2528 audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
2529 parts, not the rtsp part.  I've tried to change the vb and ab
2530 parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
2531 difference.</p>
2532
2533 <p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
2534 gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great!  He also
2535 provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
2536 its source.  By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
2537 with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
2538 multicast address on port 1234:
2539
2540 <blockquote><pre>
2541 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2542   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2543   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2544   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2545   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2546   udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2547   pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
2548     grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' |  cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
2549   audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
2550 </pre></blockquote>
2551
2552 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2553
2554 <blockquote><pre>
2555 echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
2556   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2557 </pre></blockquote>
2558
2559 <p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source.  It might not
2560 pick the one you need.  This approach will of course lead to trouble
2561 if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
2562 Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
2563 local network.  If the value is increased, your screen will be
2564 broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
2565 multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
2566
2567 <p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
2568 could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
2569 The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
2570 seem to be doing a better job.</p>
2571
2572 <blockquote><pre>
2573 cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
2574 </pre></blockquote>
2575
2576 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2577 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2578 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2579
2580       </div>
2581       <div class="tags">
2582
2583
2584         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2585
2586
2587       </div>
2588     </div>
2589     <div class="padding"></div>
2590
2591     <div class="entry">
2592       <div class="title">
2593         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in 2018?</a>
2594       </div>
2595       <div class="date">
2596          9th July 2018
2597       </div>
2598       <div class="body">
2599         <p>Five years ago,
2600 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">I
2601 measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was</a>, by
2602 analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive.  Since
2603 then, the DEP-11 AppStream system has been put into production, making
2604 the task a lot easier.  This made me want to repeat the measurement,
2605 to see how much things changed.  Here are the new numbers, for
2606 unstable only this time:
2607
2608 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2609
2610 <pre>
2611   count MIME type
2612   ----- -----------------------
2613      56 image/jpeg
2614      55 image/png
2615      49 image/tiff
2616      48 image/gif
2617      39 image/bmp
2618      38 text/plain
2619      37 audio/mpeg
2620      34 application/ogg
2621      33 audio/x-flac
2622      32 audio/x-mp3
2623      30 audio/x-wav
2624      30 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
2625      29 image/x-portable-pixmap
2626      27 inode/directory
2627      27 image/x-portable-bitmap
2628      27 audio/x-mpeg
2629      26 application/x-ogg
2630      25 audio/x-mpegurl
2631      25 audio/ogg
2632      24 text/html
2633 </pre>
2634
2635 <p>The list was created like this using a sid chroot: "cat
2636 /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz| zcat | awk '/^
2637 - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20"</p>
2638
2639 <p>It is interesting to see how image formats have passed text/plain
2640 as the most announced supported MIME type.  These days, thanks to the
2641 AppStream system, if you run into a file format you do not know, and
2642 want to figure out which packages support the format, you can find the
2643 MIME type of the file using "file --mime &lt;filename&gt;", and then
2644 look up all packages announcing support for this format in their
2645 AppStream metadata (XML or .desktop file) using "appstreamcli
2646 what-provides mimetype &lt;mime-type&gt;.  For example if you, like
2647 me, want to know which packages support inode/directory, you can get a
2648 list like this:</p>
2649
2650 <p><blockquote><pre>
2651 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype inode/directory | grep Package: | sort
2652 Package: anjuta
2653 Package: audacious
2654 Package: baobab
2655 Package: cervisia
2656 Package: chirp
2657 Package: dolphin
2658 Package: doublecmd-common
2659 Package: easytag
2660 Package: enlightenment
2661 Package: ephoto
2662 Package: filelight
2663 Package: gwenview
2664 Package: k4dirstat
2665 Package: kaffeine
2666 Package: kdesvn
2667 Package: kid3
2668 Package: kid3-qt
2669 Package: nautilus
2670 Package: nemo
2671 Package: pcmanfm
2672 Package: pcmanfm-qt
2673 Package: qweborf
2674 Package: ranger
2675 Package: sirikali
2676 Package: spacefm
2677 Package: spacefm
2678 Package: vifm
2679 %
2680 </pre></blockquote></p>
2681
2682 <p>Using the same method, I can quickly discover that the Sketchup file
2683 format is not yet supported by any package in Debian:</p>
2684
2685 <p><blockquote><pre>
2686 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/vnd.sketchup.skp
2687 Could not find component providing 'mimetype::application/vnd.sketchup.skp'.
2688 %
2689 </pre></blockquote></p>
2690
2691 <p>Yesterday I used it to figure out which packages support the STL 3D
2692 format:</p>
2693
2694 <p><blockquote><pre>
2695 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/sla|grep Package
2696 Package: cura
2697 Package: meshlab
2698 Package: printrun
2699 %
2700 </pre></blockquote></p>
2701
2702 <p>PS: A new version of Cura was uploaded to Debian yesterday.</p>
2703
2704 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2705 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2706 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2707
2708       </div>
2709       <div class="tags">
2710
2711
2712         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2713
2714
2715       </div>
2716     </div>
2717     <div class="padding"></div>
2718
2719     <div class="entry">
2720       <div class="title">
2721         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_APT_upgrade_without_enough_free_space_on_the_disk___.html">Debian APT upgrade without enough free space on the disk...</a>
2722       </div>
2723       <div class="date">
2724          8th July 2018
2725       </div>
2726       <div class="body">
2727         <p>Quite regularly, I let my Debian Sid/Unstable chroot stay untouch
2728 for a while, and when I need to update it there is not enough free
2729 space on the disk for apt to do a normal 'apt upgrade'.  I normally
2730 would resolve the issue by doing 'apt install &lt;somepackages&gt;' to
2731 upgrade only some of the packages in one batch, until the amount of
2732 packages to download fall below the amount of free space available.
2733 Today, I had about 500 packages to upgrade, and after a while I got
2734 tired of trying to install chunks of packages manually.  I concluded
2735 that I did not have the spare hours required to complete the task, and
2736 decided to see if I could automate it.  I came up with this small
2737 script which I call 'apt-in-chunks':</p>
2738
2739 <p><blockquote><pre>
2740 #!/bin/sh
2741 #
2742 # Upgrade packages when the disk is too full to upgrade every
2743 # upgradable package in one lump.  Fetching packages to upgrade using
2744 # apt, and then installing using dpkg, to avoid changing the package
2745 # flag for manual/automatic.
2746
2747 set -e
2748
2749 ignore() {
2750     if [ "$1" ]; then
2751         grep -v "$1"
2752     else
2753         cat
2754     fi
2755 }
2756
2757 for p in $(apt list --upgradable | ignore "$@" |cut -d/ -f1 | grep -v '^Listing...'); do
2758     echo "Upgrading $p"
2759     apt clean
2760     apt install --download-only -y $p
2761     for f in /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do
2762         if [ -e "$f" ]; then
2763             dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
2764             break
2765         fi
2766     done
2767 done
2768 </pre></blockquote></p>
2769
2770 <p>The script will extract the list of packages to upgrade, try to
2771 download the packages needed to upgrade one package, install the
2772 downloaded packages using dpkg.  The idea is to upgrade packages
2773 without changing the APT mark for the package (ie the one recording of
2774 the package was manually requested or pulled in as a dependency).  To
2775 use it, simply run it as root from the command line.  If it fail, try
2776 'apt install -f' to clean up the mess and run the script again.  This
2777 might happen if the new packages conflict with one of the old
2778 packages.  dpkg is unable to remove, while apt can do this.</p>
2779
2780 <p>It take one option, a package to ignore in the list of packages to
2781 upgrade.  The option to ignore a package is there to be able to skip
2782 the packages that are simply too large to unpack.  Today this was
2783 'ghc', but I have run into other large packages causing similar
2784 problems earlier (like TeX).</p>
2785
2786 <p>Update 2018-07-08: Thanks to Paul Wise, I am aware of two
2787 alternative ways to handle this.  The "unattended-upgrades
2788 --minimal-upgrade-steps" option will try to calculate upgrade sets for
2789 each package to upgrade, and then upgrade them in order, smallest set
2790 first.  It might be a better option than my above mentioned script.
2791 Also, "aptutude upgrade" can upgrade single packages, thus avoiding
2792 the need for using "dpkg -i" in the script above.</p>
2793
2794 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2795 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2796 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2797
2798       </div>
2799       <div class="tags">
2800
2801
2802         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2803
2804
2805       </div>
2806     </div>
2807     <div class="padding"></div>
2808
2809     <div class="entry">
2810       <div class="title">
2811         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html">Version 3.1 of Cura, the 3D print slicer, is now in Debian</a>
2812       </div>
2813       <div class="date">
2814         13th February 2018
2815       </div>
2816       <div class="body">
2817         <p>A new version of the
2818 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
2819 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
2820 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
2821 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
2822 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
2823 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
2824 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
2825 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
2826 well.</p>
2827
2828 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
2829 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
2830 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
2831 in Debian.</p>
2832
2833 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2834 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2835 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2836
2837       </div>
2838       <div class="tags">
2839
2840
2841         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2842
2843
2844       </div>
2845     </div>
2846     <div class="padding"></div>
2847
2848     <div class="entry">
2849       <div class="title">
2850         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html">Cura, the nice 3D print slicer, is now in Debian Unstable</a>
2851       </div>
2852       <div class="date">
2853         17th December 2017
2854       </div>
2855       <div class="body">
2856         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
2857 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
2858 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
2859 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
2860 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
2861 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
2862 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
2863 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
2864 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
2865 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
2866 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
2867 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
2868 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
2869
2870 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
2871 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
2872 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
2873 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
2874 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
2875
2876 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
2877 team, flocking together on the
2878 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
2879 mailing list and the
2880 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
2881 IRC channel.</p>
2882
2883 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
2884 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
2885 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
2886
2887       </div>
2888       <div class="tags">
2889
2890
2891         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2892
2893
2894       </div>
2895     </div>
2896     <div class="padding"></div>
2897
2898     <div class="entry">
2899       <div class="title">
2900         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Generating_3D_prints_in_Debian_using_Cura_and_Slic3r__prusa_.html">Generating 3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)</a>
2901       </div>
2902       <div class="date">
2903          9th October 2017
2904       </div>
2905       <div class="body">
2906         <p>At my nearby maker space,
2907 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
2908 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
2909 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
2910 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
2911 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
2912 as the software involved,
2913 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
2914 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
2915 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
2916 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
2917 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
2918 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
2919 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
2920
2921 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
2922 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
2923 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
2924 on
2925 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2926 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
2927
2928 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
2929 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
2930 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
2931 upstream version.</p>
2932
2933 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
2934 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
2935 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
2936 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
2937 Debian, check out
2938 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
2939 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
2940 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
2941
2942 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2943 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2944 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2945
2946       </div>
2947       <div class="tags">
2948
2949
2950         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2951
2952
2953       </div>
2954     </div>
2955     <div class="padding"></div>
2956
2957     <div class="entry">
2958       <div class="title">
2959         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html">Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass</a>
2960       </div>
2961       <div class="date">
2962         29th September 2017
2963       </div>
2964       <div class="body">
2965         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
2966 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
2967 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
2968 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
2969 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
2970 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
2971 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
2972 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
2973 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
2974 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
2975 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
2976 listen.</p>
2977
2978 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
2979 visualizing this information up and running for
2980 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
2981 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
2982 library.  The solution is based on the
2983 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
2984 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
2985 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
2986 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
2987 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
2988 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
2989 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
2990 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
2991
2992 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
2993 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
2994 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
2995 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
2996 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
2997 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
2998 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
2999 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
3000
3001 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
3002 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
3003 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
3004 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
3005 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
3006 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
3007 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
3008 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
3009 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
3010 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
3011 mentioned in
3012 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
3013 issue for the topic</a>.
3014
3015 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
3016
3017       </div>
3018       <div class="tags">
3019
3020
3021         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3022
3023
3024       </div>
3025     </div>
3026     <div class="padding"></div>
3027
3028     <div class="entry">
3029       <div class="title">
3030         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you</a>
3031       </div>
3032       <div class="date">
3033         24th September 2017
3034       </div>
3035       <div class="body">
3036         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
3037 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
3038 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
3039 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
3040 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
3041 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
3042 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
3043 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
3044 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
3045
3046 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
3047 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
3048 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
3049 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
3050
3051 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
3052 clone of two python scripts:</p>
3053
3054 <ol>
3055
3056 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
3057   testing).</li>
3058
3059 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
3060   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
3061
3062 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
3063   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
3064
3065 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
3066
3067 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
3068   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
3069   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
3070
3071 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
3072   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
3073
3074 </ol>
3075
3076 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
3077 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
3078 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
3079 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
3080 very cheaply
3081 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
3082 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
3083 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
3084
3085 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
3086 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
3087 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
3088 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
3089 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
3090 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
3091 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
3092 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
3093
3094 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
3095 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
3096 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
3097 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
3098 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
3099 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
3100 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
3101 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
3102 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
3103 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
3104 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
3105 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
3106
3107       </div>
3108       <div class="tags">
3109
3110
3111         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3112
3113
3114       </div>
3115     </div>
3116     <div class="padding"></div>
3117
3118     <div class="entry">
3119       <div class="title">
3120         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher using Debian</a>
3121       </div>
3122       <div class="date">
3123          9th August 2017
3124       </div>
3125       <div class="body">
3126         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
3127 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
3128 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
3129 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
3130 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
3131 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
3132 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
3133
3134 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
3135 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
3136 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
3137 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
3138 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
3139 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
3140 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
3141 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
3142 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
3143 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
3144 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
3145 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
3146 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
3147
3148 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
3149 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
3150 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
3151 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
3152 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
3153 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
3154 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
3155 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
3156 collector for a few days now.</p>
3157
3158 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
3159
3160 <ol>
3161
3162 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
3163
3164 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
3165 <a href="http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/</a>,</li>
3166
3167 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
3168
3169 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
3170 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
3171 found a GSM station).</li>
3172
3173 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
3174
3175 </ol>
3176
3177 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
3178 running, I decided to package
3179 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
3180 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
3181 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
3182 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
3183 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
3184
3185 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
3186 commercial tools like
3187 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
3188 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
3189 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
3190 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
3191 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
3192 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
3193 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
3194 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
3195 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
3196 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
3197 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
3198 of government officials...</p>
3199
3200 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
3201 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
3202 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
3203 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
3204 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
3205 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
3206 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
3207 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
3208 one frequency?</p>
3209
3210       </div>
3211       <div class="tags">
3212
3213
3214         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3215
3216
3217       </div>
3218     </div>
3219     <div class="padding"></div>
3220
3221     <div class="entry">
3222       <div class="title">
3223         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available</a>
3224       </div>
3225       <div class="date">
3226         25th July 2017
3227       </div>
3228       <div class="body">
3229         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
3230
3231 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
3232 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
3233 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
3234 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
3235 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
3236 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
3237 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
3238 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
3239 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
3240 as a web page</a>.</p>
3241
3242 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
3243 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
3244 in
3245 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
3246 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
3247 and
3248 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
3249 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
3250 project.  I hope
3251 "<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
3252 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
3253
3254       </div>
3255       <div class="tags">
3256
3257
3258         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3259
3260
3261       </div>
3262     </div>
3263     <div class="padding"></div>
3264
3265     <div class="entry">
3266       <div class="title">
3267         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
3268       </div>
3269       <div class="date">
3270          3rd June 2017
3271       </div>
3272       <div class="body">
3273         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
3274 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
3275 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
3276 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
3277 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
3278 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
3279 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
3280
3281 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
3282
3283 <blockquote>
3284 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
3285 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
3286 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
3287
3288 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
3289 på temaet:</p>
3290 <ol>
3291 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
3292 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
3293 </ol>
3294
3295 </blockquote>
3296
3297 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
3298
3299 <blockquote>
3300 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
3301 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
3302 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
3303
3304 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
3305 temaet:</p>
3306
3307 <ol>
3308 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
3309 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
3310 </ol>
3311
3312 </blockquote>
3313
3314 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
3315 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
3316 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
3317 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
3318 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
3319 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
3320 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
3321
3322       </div>
3323       <div class="tags">
3324
3325
3326         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
3327
3328
3329       </div>
3330     </div>
3331     <div class="padding"></div>
3332
3333     <div class="entry">
3334       <div class="title">
3335         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
3336       </div>
3337       <div class="date">
3338          9th March 2017
3339       </div>
3340       <div class="body">
3341         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
3342 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
3343 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
3344 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
3345 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
3346 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
3347 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
3348 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
3349
3350 <p><blockquote>
3351 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
3352 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
3353 </blockquote></p>
3354
3355 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
3356 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
3357 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
3358 are noticed.</p>
3359
3360 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
3361 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
3362 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
3363 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
3364 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
3365 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
3366
3367 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
3368 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
3369 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
3370 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
3371 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
3372 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
3373
3374 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
3375
3376 <p><blockquote><pre>
3377 [...]
3378 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
3379 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
3380         opts:   rw,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,namlen=255,acregmin=3,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=129.240.3.145,mountvers=3,mountport=4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
3381         age:    7863311
3382         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
3383         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
3384         events: 61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
3385         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
3386         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
3387         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
3388         per-op statistics
3389                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3390              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
3391              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
3392               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
3393               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
3394             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
3395                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
3396                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
3397               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
3398                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
3399              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
3400                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
3401               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
3402                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
3403               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
3404                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
3405              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
3406          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
3407               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
3408               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
3409             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
3410               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3411
3412 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
3413 [...]
3414 </pre></blockquote></p>
3415
3416 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
3417 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
3418 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
3419 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
3420 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
3421 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
3422 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
3423 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
3424 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
3425 mount options.</p>
3426
3427 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
3428 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
3429 But according to
3430 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
3431 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
3432 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
3433 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
3434 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
3435 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
3436
3437 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
3438 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
3439 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
3440 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
3441 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
3442
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="tags">
3445
3446
3447         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
3448
3449
3450       </div>
3451     </div>
3452     <div class="padding"></div>
3453
3454     <div class="entry">
3455       <div class="title">
3456         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</a>
3457       </div>
3458       <div class="date">
3459          3rd March 2017
3460       </div>
3461       <div class="body">
3462         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
3463 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
3464 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
3465 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
3466 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
3467 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
3468 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
3469 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
3470 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
3471
3472 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
3473
3474 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
3475 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
3476 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
3477 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
3478 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
3479 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
3480 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
3481 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
3482
3483       </div>
3484       <div class="tags">
3485
3486
3487         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3488
3489
3490       </div>
3491     </div>
3492     <div class="padding"></div>
3493
3494     <div class="entry">
3495       <div class="title">
3496         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
3497       </div>
3498       <div class="date">
3499          1st March 2017
3500       </div>
3501       <div class="body">
3502         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
3503 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
3504 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
3505 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
3506 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
3507 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
3508 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
3509 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
3510 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
3511 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
3512 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3513
3514 <blockquote><pre>
3515 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3516   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3517   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3518      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3519      sleep 1; \
3520   done
3521 300
3522 0+1 oppføringer inn
3523 0+1 oppføringer ut
3524 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
3525 4
3526 8
3527 12
3528 17
3529 21
3530 %
3531 </pre></blockquote>
3532
3533 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
3534 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
3535 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
3536 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3537
3538 <blockquote><pre>
3539 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3540   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3541   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3542      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3543      sleep 1; \
3544   done
3545 1079
3546 0+1 oppføringer inn
3547 0+1 oppføringer ut
3548 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
3549 433
3550 1028
3551 1031
3552 1035
3553 1038
3554 %
3555 </pre></blockquote>
3556
3557 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
3558 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
3559
3560 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
3561 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
3562 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
3563 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
3564 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
3565 post.</p>
3566
3567       </div>
3568       <div class="tags">
3569
3570
3571         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3572
3573
3574       </div>
3575     </div>
3576     <div class="padding"></div>
3577
3578     <div class="entry">
3579       <div class="title">
3580         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
3581       </div>
3582       <div class="date">
3583          9th January 2017
3584       </div>
3585       <div class="body">
3586         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
3587 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
3588 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
3589 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
3590 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
3591 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
3592 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
3593 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
3594 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
3595 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
3596 this:
3597
3598 <p><pre>
3599 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
3600  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
3601  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
3602  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
3603  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
3604  5  he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.627 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48)  3.172 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.857 ms
3605  6  ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.39)  0.662 ms  0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.23)  0.622 ms
3606  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
3607  8  * * *
3608  9  * * *
3609 [...]
3610 </pre></p>
3611
3612 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
3613 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
3614 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
3615 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
3616 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
3617 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
3618 traceroute request.</p>
3619
3620 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
3621 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
3622 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
3623 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
3624 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
3625
3626 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
3627 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
3628 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
3629 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
3630 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
3631 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
3632 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
3633 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
3634 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
3635
3636 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
3637 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
3638 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
3639 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
3640 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
3641 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
3642 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
3643 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
3644 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
3645 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
3646 render the page (in HAR format using
3647 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
3648 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
3649 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
3650 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
3651 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
3652
3653 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
3654 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
3655
3656 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
3657 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
3658 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
3659 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
3660 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
3661 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
3662 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
3663 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
3664 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
3665 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
3666 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
3667 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
3668 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
3669 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
3670
3671 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
3672 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt="scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
3673
3674 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
3675 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
3676 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
3677 question.
3678 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
3679 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
3680 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
3681 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
3682 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
3683 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
3684 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
3685
3686 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
3687 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt="example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
3688
3689 <p>In the process, I came across the
3690 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
3691 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
3692 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
3693 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
3694 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
3695 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
3696 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
3697 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
3698 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
3699 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
3700 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
3701 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
3702 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
3703 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
3704
3705 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
3706 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
3707
3708 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
3709 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
3710 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
3711 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
3712
3713 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
3714 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
3715 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
3716 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
3717 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
3718 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
3719 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
3720
3721 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
3722 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
3723 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
3724 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
3725 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
3726 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
3727 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
3728
3729 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
3730 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
3731 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
3732 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
3733
3734 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3735 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3736 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3737
3738       </div>
3739       <div class="tags">
3740
3741
3742         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3743
3744
3745       </div>
3746     </div>
3747     <div class="padding"></div>
3748
3749     <div class="entry">
3750       <div class="title">
3751         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
3752       </div>
3753       <div class="date">
3754         23rd December 2016
3755       </div>
3756       <div class="body">
3757         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
3758 readers probably know, I have been working on the
3759 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
3760 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
3761 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
3762 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
3763 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
3764 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
3765 metadata format.  And today,
3766 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
3767 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
3768 ie using fnmatch():</p>
3769
3770 <p><pre>
3771 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
3772   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3773 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
3774 Name: pymissile
3775 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
3776 Package: pymissile
3777 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
3778 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
3779 Name: libnxt
3780 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
3781 Package: libnxt
3782 ---
3783 Identifier: t2n [generic]
3784 Name: t2n
3785 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
3786 Package: t2n
3787 ---
3788 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
3789 Name: python-nxt
3790 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
3791 Package: python-nxt
3792 ---
3793 Identifier: nbc [generic]
3794 Name: nbc
3795 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
3796 Package: nbc
3797 %
3798 </pre></p>
3799
3800 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
3801 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
3802
3803 <p><pre>
3804 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3805 pymissile
3806 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
3807 libnxt
3808 nbc
3809 python-nxt
3810 t2n
3811 %
3812 </pre></p>
3813
3814 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
3815 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
3816
3817 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
3818 make the most of the hardware they have, please
3819 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
3820 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
3821 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
3822 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
3823 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
3824 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
3825 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
3826 part of my involvement in
3827 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
3828 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
3829 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
3830 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
3831 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
3832 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
3833 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
3834 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
3835 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
3836
3837 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3838 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3839 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3840
3841       </div>
3842       <div class="tags">
3843
3844
3845         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3846
3847
3848       </div>
3849     </div>
3850     <div class="padding"></div>
3851
3852     <div class="entry">
3853       <div class="title">
3854         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
3855       </div>
3856       <div class="date">
3857         20th December 2016
3858       </div>
3859       <div class="body">
3860         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
3861 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
3862 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
3863 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
3864 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
3865 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
3866 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
3867 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
3868 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
3869 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
3870
3871 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
3872
3873 <p><pre>
3874 % isenkram-lookup
3875 bluez
3876 cheese
3877 ethtool
3878 fprintd
3879 fprintd-demo
3880 gkrellm-thinkbat
3881 hdapsd
3882 libpam-fprintd
3883 pidgin-blinklight
3884 thinkfan
3885 tlp
3886 tp-smapi-dkms
3887 tp-smapi-source
3888 tpb
3889 %
3890 </pre></p>
3891
3892 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
3893 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
3894 I have all the firmware my machine need:
3895
3896 <p><pre>
3897 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3898 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3899 %
3900 </pre></p>
3901
3902 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
3903 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
3904 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
3905 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
3906 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
3907 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
3908 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
3909 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
3910
3911 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
3912 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
3913 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
3914
3915 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
3916 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
3917 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
3918 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
3919 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
3920 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
3921 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
3922 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
3923 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
3924 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
3925 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
3926 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
3927 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
3928 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
3929 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
3930 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
3931 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
3932 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
3933 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
3934 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
3935 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
3936 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
3937 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
3938 zd1211-firmware</p>
3939
3940 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
3941 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
3942 maintainer to
3943 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
3944 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
3945 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
3946 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
3947
3948 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
3949 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
3950 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
3951 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
3952 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
3953
3954       </div>
3955       <div class="tags">
3956
3957
3958         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3959
3960
3961       </div>
3962     </div>
3963     <div class="padding"></div>
3964
3965     <div class="entry">
3966       <div class="title">
3967         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
3968       </div>
3969       <div class="date">
3970         11th December 2016
3971       </div>
3972       <div class="body">
3973         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
3974
3975 <p>In my early years, I played
3976 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
3977 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
3978 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
3979 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
3980 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
3981 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
3982 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
3983 small.</p>
3984
3985 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
3986 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
3987 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
3988 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
3989 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
3990 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
3991 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
3992 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
3993 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
3994
3995 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
3996 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
3997 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
3998 advantages of the
3999 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
4000 where information about each planet is easily available with common
4001 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
4002 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
4003 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
4004 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
4005 after less then a week.</p>
4006
4007 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
4008 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
4009 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
4010
4011 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4012 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4013 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4014
4015       </div>
4016       <div class="tags">
4017
4018
4019         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4020
4021
4022       </div>
4023     </div>
4024     <div class="padding"></div>
4025
4026     <div class="entry">
4027       <div class="title">
4028         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
4029       </div>
4030       <div class="date">
4031         25th November 2016
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="body">
4034         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
4035 installation system, observing how using
4036 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
4037 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
4038 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
4039 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
4040 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
4041 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
4042 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
4043 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
4044 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
4045 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
4046 up the process make perfect sense.
4047
4048 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
4049 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
4050 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
4051 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
4052 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
4053 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
4054 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
4055 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
4056 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
4057 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
4058
4059 <blockquote><pre>
4060 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
4061 </pre></blockquote>
4062
4063 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
4064 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
4065 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
4066 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
4067 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
4068 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
4069 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
4070 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
4071 tested its impact.</p>
4072
4073
4074       </div>
4075       <div class="tags">
4076
4077
4078         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4079
4080
4081       </div>
4082     </div>
4083     <div class="padding"></div>
4084
4085     <div class="entry">
4086       <div class="title">
4087         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
4088       </div>
4089       <div class="date">
4090         24th November 2016
4091       </div>
4092       <div class="body">
4093         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
4094 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
4095 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
4096 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
4097 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
4098 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
4099 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
4100 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
4101 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
4102 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
4103 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
4104 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
4105 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
4106 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
4107 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
4108 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
4109 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
4110 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
4111 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
4112
4113 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
4114 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
4115 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
4116 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
4117 api.apertium.org.  Se
4118 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
4119 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
4120 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
4121 nynorsk.</p>
4122
4123 <hr/>
4124
4125 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
4126 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
4127 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
4128 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
4129 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
4130 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
4131 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
4132 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
4133 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
4134 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
4135 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
4136 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
4137 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
4138 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
4139 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
4140 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
4141 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
4142 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
4143 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
4144
4145 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
4146 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
4147 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
4148 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
4149 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
4150 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
4151 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
4152 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
4153 nynorsk.</p>
4154
4155       </div>
4156       <div class="tags">
4157
4158
4159         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
4160
4161
4162       </div>
4163     </div>
4164     <div class="padding"></div>
4165
4166     <div class="entry">
4167       <div class="title">
4168         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
4169       </div>
4170       <div class="date">
4171         13th November 2016
4172       </div>
4173       <div class="body">
4174         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
4175 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
4176 multi-threaded program, finally
4177 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
4178 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
4179 months since
4180 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
4181 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
4182 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
4183 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
4184 JavaScript libraries.</p>
4185
4186 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
4187
4188 <p><blockquote>
4189 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
4190 </blockquote></p>
4191
4192 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
4193 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
4194 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
4195 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
4196 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
4197
4198 <p><blockquote>
4199 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
4200 </blockquote></p>
4201
4202 <p>See the project home page and the
4203 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
4204 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
4205 working.</p>
4206
4207       </div>
4208       <div class="tags">
4209
4210
4211         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4212
4213
4214       </div>
4215     </div>
4216     <div class="padding"></div>
4217
4218     <div class="entry">
4219       <div class="title">
4220         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
4221       </div>
4222       <div class="date">
4223          4th November 2016
4224       </div>
4225       <div class="body">
4226         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
4227 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
4228 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
4229 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
4230 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
4231 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
4232 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
4233 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
4234 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
4235 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
4236 and had
4237 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
4238 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
4239 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
4240 loved ones. :)</p>
4241
4242 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
4243 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
4244 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
4245 building
4246 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
4247 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
4248 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
4249 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
4250 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
4251 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
4252 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
4253 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
4254
4255 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
4256
4257 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
4258 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
4259 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
4260 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
4261 the battery status run low:</p>
4262
4263 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
4264    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
4265 </video></p>
4266
4267 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
4268 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
4269
4270 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
4271 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
4272 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
4273 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
4274 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
4275 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
4276 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
4277 should.</p>
4278
4279       </div>
4280       <div class="tags">
4281
4282
4283         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4284
4285
4286       </div>
4287     </div>
4288     <div class="padding"></div>
4289
4290     <div class="entry">
4291       <div class="title">
4292         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
4293       </div>
4294       <div class="date">
4295         10th October 2016
4296       </div>
4297       <div class="body">
4298         <p>In July
4299 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
4300 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
4301 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
4302 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
4303
4304 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
4305 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
4306 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
4307 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
4308 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
4309 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
4310 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
4311 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
4312 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
4313 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
4314 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
4315 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
4316 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
4317 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
4318 time.</p>
4319
4320 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
4321 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
4322 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
4323 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
4324 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
4325 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
4326 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
4327
4328 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
4329 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
4330 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
4331 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
4332 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
4333 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
4334 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
4335 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
4336 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
4337 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
4338
4339 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
4340
4341 <ol>
4342
4343 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
4344 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
4345 know, so you need to install it.
4346
4347 <pre>
4348 apt install git tor chromium
4349 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4350 </pre></li>
4351
4352 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
4353 block below.</li>
4354
4355 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
4356 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
4357
4358 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
4359 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
4360 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
4361 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
4362 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
4363
4364 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
4365 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
4366 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
4367 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
4368 a associated contact database.</li>
4369
4370 </ol>
4371
4372 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
4373 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
4374 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
4375 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
4376 example
4377 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
4378 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
4379 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
4380 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
4381 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
4382 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
4383 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
4384 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
4385 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
4386 working on Debian Stable.</p>
4387
4388 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
4389 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
4390 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
4391
4392 <pre>
4393 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
4394 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
4395 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
4396 --- a/js/background.js
4397 +++ b/js/background.js
4398 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
4399          });
4400      });
4401
4402 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4403 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
4404      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
4405 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4406 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4407      var messageReceiver;
4408      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4409          if (messageReceiver) {
4410 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
4411 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
4412 --- a/js/expire.js
4413 +++ b/js/expire.js
4414 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4415  ;(function() {
4416      'use strict';
4417 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4418 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
4419
4420      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4421
4422 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
4423 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
4424 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
4425 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
4426 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
4427              return {
4428                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
4429                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
4430 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
4431 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
4432 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
4433              };
4434          },
4435          clearQR: function() {
4436 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
4437 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
4438 --- a/options.html
4439 +++ b/options.html
4440 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
4441          &lt;div class='nav'>
4442            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
4443            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
4444 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
4445 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
4446 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
4447 +
4448 +         &lt;/div>
4449            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
4450            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
4451            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
4452 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
4453 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
4454 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
4455 +#!/bin/sh
4456 +set -e
4457 +cd $(dirname $0)
4458 +mkdir -p userdata
4459 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
4460 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
4461 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
4462 +fi
4463 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
4464 +exec chromium \
4465 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4466 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4467 EOF
4468 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
4469 </pre>
4470
4471 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4472 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4473 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4474
4475       </div>
4476       <div class="tags">
4477
4478
4479         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4480
4481
4482       </div>
4483     </div>
4484     <div class="padding"></div>
4485
4486     <div class="entry">
4487       <div class="title">
4488         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
4489       </div>
4490       <div class="date">
4491          7th October 2016
4492       </div>
4493       <div class="body">
4494         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
4495 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
4496 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
4497 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
4498 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
4499 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
4500 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
4501 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
4502 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
4503 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
4504 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
4505 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
4506 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
4507
4508 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
4509 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
4510 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
4511 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
4512 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
4513 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
4514
4515 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
4516 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
4517 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
4518 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
4519 identifiers.</p>
4520
4521 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
4522 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
4523 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
4524 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
4525 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
4526 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
4527 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
4528 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
4529 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
4530 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
4531 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
4532 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
4533 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
4534 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
4535
4536 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
4537 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
4538 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
4539 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
4540 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
4541 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
4542 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
4543
4544 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
4545 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
4546 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
4547 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
4548 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
4549 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
4550 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
4551 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
4552 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
4553 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
4554 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
4555 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
4556 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
4557 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
4558 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
4559 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
4560 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
4561
4562 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
4563 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
4564 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
4565 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
4566 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
4567 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
4568 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
4569
4570 <p><pre>
4571 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
4572     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
4573 </pre></p>
4574
4575 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
4576 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
4577 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
4578 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
4579 to detect this?</p>
4580
4581 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
4582 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
4583 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
4584 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
4585 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
4586 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
4587 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
4588 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
4589 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
4590 directly if no such class exist.</p>
4591
4592 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
4593 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
4594 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
4595
4596 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
4597 please join us on our IRC channel
4598 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
4599 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
4600 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
4601 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
4602
4603 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4604 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4605 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4606
4607       </div>
4608       <div class="tags">
4609
4610
4611         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>.
4612
4613
4614       </div>
4615     </div>
4616     <div class="padding"></div>
4617
4618     <div class="entry">
4619       <div class="title">
4620         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
4621       </div>
4622       <div class="date">
4623         30th August 2016
4624       </div>
4625       <div class="body">
4626         <p>In April we
4627 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
4628 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
4629 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
4630 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
4631 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
4632 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
4633 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
4634 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
4635 contributing using
4636 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
4637 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
4638 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
4639 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
4640 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
4641 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
4642 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
4643
4644 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
4645 electronic form.</p>
4646
4647       </div>
4648       <div class="tags">
4649
4650
4651         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4652
4653
4654       </div>
4655     </div>
4656     <div class="padding"></div>
4657
4658     <div class="entry">
4659       <div class="title">
4660         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
4661       </div>
4662       <div class="date">
4663         11th August 2016
4664       </div>
4665       <div class="body">
4666         <p>This summer, I read a great article
4667 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
4668 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
4669 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
4670 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
4671 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
4672 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
4673 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
4674 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
4675 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
4676 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
4677 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
4678 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
4679
4680 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
4681 get the system into Debian.  I
4682 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
4683 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
4684 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
4685 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
4686 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
4687 profiling information included in the source package.
4688 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
4689
4690 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
4691 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
4692
4693 <p><blockquote><pre>
4694 coz run --- program-to-run
4695 </pre></blockquote></p>
4696
4697 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
4698 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
4699 most, use a web browser and either point it to
4700 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
4701 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
4702 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
4703 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
4704 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
4705 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
4706 targeted experiments.</p>
4707
4708 <p>A video published by ACM
4709 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
4710 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
4711 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
4712 titled
4713 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
4714 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
4715
4716 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
4717 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
4718 because it uses a
4719 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
4720 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
4721 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
4722 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
4723
4724 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
4725 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
4726 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
4727 C++ libraries.</p>
4728
4729       </div>
4730       <div class="tags">
4731
4732
4733         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4734
4735
4736       </div>
4737     </div>
4738     <div class="padding"></div>
4739
4740     <div class="entry">
4741       <div class="title">
4742         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
4743       </div>
4744       <div class="date">
4745          7th July 2016
4746       </div>
4747       <div class="body">
4748         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
4749 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
4750 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
4751 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
4752 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
4753 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
4754 microphone The initial idea had been to just
4755 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
4756 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
4757 until a few days ago.</p>
4758
4759 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
4760 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
4761 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
4762 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
4763 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
4764 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
4765 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
4766
4767 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
4768 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
4769 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
4770 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
4771 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
4772 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
4773 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
4774 him.</p>
4775
4776 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
4777 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
4778 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
4779 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
4780 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
4781 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
4782 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
4783 devices it would work for.</p>
4784
4785 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
4786 followed some instructions
4787 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
4788 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
4789 machine with Debian testing:</p>
4790
4791 <p><pre>
4792 adb reboot-bootloader
4793 fastboot oem rebootRUU
4794 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4795 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4796 fastboot reboot
4797 </pre></p>
4798
4799 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
4800 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
4801 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
4802 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
4803 too.</p>
4804
4805 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
4806 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
4807 like this:</p>
4808
4809 <p><pre>
4810 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
4811 </pre>
4812
4813 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
4814 this:</p>
4815
4816 <p><pre>
4817 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
4818 </pre></p>
4819
4820 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
4821 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
4822 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
4823 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
4824 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
4825
4826       </div>
4827       <div class="tags">
4828
4829
4830         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4831
4832
4833       </div>
4834     </div>
4835     <div class="padding"></div>
4836
4837     <div class="entry">
4838       <div class="title">
4839         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
4840       </div>
4841       <div class="date">
4842          3rd July 2016
4843       </div>
4844       <div class="body">
4845         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
4846 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
4847 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
4848 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
4849 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
4850 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
4851 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
4852 Github source, compared it to the source in
4853 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
4854 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
4855 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
4856 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
4857 the recipe how I did it.</p>
4858
4859 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
4860
4861 <pre>
4862 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4863 </pre>
4864
4865 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
4866 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
4867
4868 <pre>
4869 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
4870 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
4871 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4872 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4873 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
4874          });
4875      });
4876
4877 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4878 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4879 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
4880 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4881      var messageReceiver;
4882      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4883          if (messageReceiver) {
4884 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
4885 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4886 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4887 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4888  ;(function() {
4889      'use strict';
4890 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4891 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
4892
4893      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4894
4895 EOF
4896 </pre>
4897
4898 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
4899 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
4900 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
4901 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
4902
4903 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
4904 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
4905
4906 <pre>
4907 #!/bin/sh
4908 cd $(dirname $0)
4909 mkdir -p userdata
4910 exec chromium \
4911   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4912   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4913 </pre>
4914
4915 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
4916 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
4917 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
4918 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
4919 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
4920
4921 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
4922 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
4923 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
4924 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
4925 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
4926 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
4927 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
4928 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
4929 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
4930 Signal from my laptop.
4931
4932 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
4933 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
4934 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
4935 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
4936 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
4937 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
4938 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
4939 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
4940 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
4941 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
4942 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
4943 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
4944
4945 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
4946 on this topic in
4947 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
4948 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
4949 phone</a>.</p>
4950
4951       </div>
4952       <div class="tags">
4953
4954
4955         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4956
4957
4958       </div>
4959     </div>
4960     <div class="padding"></div>
4961
4962     <div class="entry">
4963       <div class="title">
4964         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
4965       </div>
4966       <div class="date">
4967          6th June 2016
4968       </div>
4969       <div class="body">
4970         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
4971 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
4972 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
4973 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
4974 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
4975 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
4976 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
4977 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
4978 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
4979
4980 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
4981 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
4982 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
4983 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
4984 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
4985 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
4986 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
4987
4988 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
4989 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
4990 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
4991 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
4992 toten and parole.</p>
4993
4994 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
4995 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
4996 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
4997 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
4998 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
4999 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
5000 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
5001 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
5002 formats.</p>
5003
5004       </div>
5005       <div class="tags">
5006
5007
5008         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5009
5010
5011       </div>
5012     </div>
5013     <div class="padding"></div>
5014
5015     <div class="entry">
5016       <div class="title">
5017         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
5018       </div>
5019       <div class="date">
5020          5th June 2016
5021       </div>
5022       <div class="body">
5023         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
5024 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
5025 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
5026 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
5027 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
5028 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
5029 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
5030 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
5031 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
5032 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
5033 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
5034 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
5035 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
5036 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
5037 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
5038 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
5039 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
5040 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
5041 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
5042 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
5043
5044 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
5045 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
5046 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
5047 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
5048 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
5049 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
5050 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
5051 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
5052 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
5053 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
5054 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
5055 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
5056 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
5057 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
5058
5059 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
5060 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
5061 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
5062 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
5063 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
5064 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
5065 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
5066 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
5067
5068 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
5069 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
5070 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
5071 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
5072 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
5073 information is collected from
5074 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
5075 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
5076 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
5077 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
5078 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
5079 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
5080 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
5081 type (preferably
5082 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
5083 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
5084 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
5085 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
5086
5087 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
5088 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
5089 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
5090
5091 <p><blockquote><pre>
5092 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
5093 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
5094   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
5095     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
5096     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
5097     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
5098   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
5099 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
5100 </pre></blockquote></p>
5101
5102 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
5103 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
5104 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
5105 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
5106
5107 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
5108 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
5109 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
5110
5111 <p><blockquote><pre>
5112 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
5113 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
5114 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
5115 %
5116 </pre></blockquote></p>
5117
5118 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
5119 MimeType= line.</p>
5120
5121 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
5122 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
5123 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
5124 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
5125 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
5126 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
5127 fixed. :)</p>
5128
5129       </div>
5130       <div class="tags">
5131
5132
5133         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5134
5135
5136       </div>
5137     </div>
5138     <div class="padding"></div>
5139
5140     <div class="entry">
5141       <div class="title">
5142         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
5143       </div>
5144       <div class="date">
5145         25th May 2016
5146       </div>
5147       <div class="body">
5148         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
5149 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
5150 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
5151 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
5152 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
5153 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
5154 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
5155 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
5156 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
5157 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
5158 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
5159 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
5160
5161 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
5162 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
5163 is going away and is generally being replaced by
5164 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
5165 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
5166 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
5167 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
5168 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
5169 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
5170 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
5171 and see if it is recognised.</p>
5172
5173 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
5174 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
5175 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
5176
5177 <p><blockquote><pre>
5178 % isenkram-lookup
5179 bluez
5180 cheese
5181 fprintd
5182 fprintd-demo
5183 gkrellm-thinkbat
5184 hdapsd
5185 libpam-fprintd
5186 pidgin-blinklight
5187 thinkfan
5188 tleds
5189 tp-smapi-dkms
5190 tp-smapi-source
5191 tpb
5192 %p
5193 </pre></blockquote></p>
5194
5195 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
5196 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
5197 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
5198 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
5199 See
5200 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
5201 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
5202
5203       </div>
5204       <div class="tags">
5205
5206
5207         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5208
5209
5210       </div>
5211     </div>
5212     <div class="padding"></div>
5213
5214     <div class="entry">
5215       <div class="title">
5216         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
5217       </div>
5218       <div class="date">
5219         23rd May 2016
5220       </div>
5221       <div class="body">
5222         <p>Yesterday I updated the
5223 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
5224 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
5225 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
5226 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
5227 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
5228 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
5229 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
5230 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
5231 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
5232 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
5233
5234 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
5235 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
5236 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
5237 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
5238 capacity.</p>
5239
5240 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
5241
5242 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
5243 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
5244 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
5245 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
5246
5247 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
5248
5249 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
5250 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
5251 shrinking. :(</p>
5252
5253 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
5254 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
5255 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
5256 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
5257 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
5258 machine.</p>
5259
5260 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5261 check out the
5262 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5263 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5264 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
5265 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5266 Patches are very welcome.</p>
5267
5268 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5269 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5270 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5271
5272       </div>
5273       <div class="tags">
5274
5275
5276         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5277
5278
5279       </div>
5280     </div>
5281     <div class="padding"></div>
5282
5283     <div class="entry">
5284       <div class="title">
5285         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
5286       </div>
5287       <div class="date">
5288         12th May 2016
5289       </div>
5290       <div class="body">
5291         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
5292 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
5293 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
5294 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
5295 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
5296 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5297 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
5298 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
5299 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
5300 great if you could help out with
5301 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
5302 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
5303
5304       </div>
5305       <div class="tags">
5306
5307
5308         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5309
5310
5311       </div>
5312     </div>
5313     <div class="padding"></div>
5314
5315     <div class="entry">
5316       <div class="title">
5317         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
5318       </div>
5319       <div class="date">
5320          8th May 2016
5321       </div>
5322       <div class="body">
5323         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
5324 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
5325
5326 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
5327 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
5328 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
5329 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
5330 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
5331 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
5332 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
5333 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
5334 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
5335 players.</p>
5336
5337 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
5338 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
5339 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
5340 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
5341 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
5342 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
5343 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
5344 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
5345 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
5346 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
5347 support most file formats.</p>
5348
5349 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
5350 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
5351 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
5352 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
5353 listed first in the table.</p>
5354
5355 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
5356 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
5357 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
5358 support?</p>
5359
5360       </div>
5361       <div class="tags">
5362
5363
5364         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5365
5366
5367       </div>
5368     </div>
5369     <div class="padding"></div>
5370
5371     <div class="entry">
5372       <div class="title">
5373         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
5374       </div>
5375       <div class="date">
5376          4th May 2016
5377       </div>
5378       <div class="body">
5379         A friend of mine made me aware of
5380 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
5381 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
5382 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
5383
5384 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
5385 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
5386 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
5387 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
5388 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
5389 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
5390 production started.</p>
5391
5392 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
5393 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
5394 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
5395
5396       </div>
5397       <div class="tags">
5398
5399
5400         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5401
5402
5403       </div>
5404     </div>
5405     <div class="padding"></div>
5406
5407     <div class="entry">
5408       <div class="title">
5409         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
5410       </div>
5411       <div class="date">
5412         10th April 2016
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="body">
5415         <p>During this weekends
5416 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
5417 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
5418 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
5419 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
5420 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
5421 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
5422 contributing using
5423 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
5424 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
5425 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
5426 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
5427 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
5428 contributors</a>.</p>
5429
5430 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
5431 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
5432 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
5433 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
5434 available for many more languages.</p>
5435
5436       </div>
5437       <div class="tags">
5438
5439
5440         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5441
5442
5443       </div>
5444     </div>
5445     <div class="padding"></div>
5446
5447     <div class="entry">
5448       <div class="title">
5449         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
5450       </div>
5451       <div class="date">
5452          7th April 2016
5453       </div>
5454       <div class="body">
5455         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
5456 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
5457 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
5458 But I might be wrong.</p>
5459
5460 <p>According to
5461 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
5462 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
5463 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
5464 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
5465 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
5466 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
5467 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
5468 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
5469 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
5470 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
5471
5472 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
5473 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
5474 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
5475 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
5476 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
5477 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
5478 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
5479 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5480 team status page</a>, and
5481 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
5482 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
5483
5484 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
5485 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
5486 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
5487 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
5488 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
5489 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
5490 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
5491 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
5492 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
5493 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
5494 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
5495 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
5496
5497       </div>
5498       <div class="tags">
5499
5500
5501         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5502
5503
5504       </div>
5505     </div>
5506     <div class="padding"></div>
5507
5508     <div class="entry">
5509       <div class="title">
5510         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
5511       </div>
5512       <div class="date">
5513         23rd March 2016
5514       </div>
5515       <div class="body">
5516         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
5517 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
5518 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
5519 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
5520 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
5521 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
5522 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
5523 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
5524
5525 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
5526 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
5527 and lifetime prediction by running:
5528
5529 <p><pre>
5530 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
5531 </pre></p>
5532
5533 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
5534
5535 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
5536 entry yet):</p>
5537
5538 <p><pre>
5539 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
5540 </pre></p>
5541
5542 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
5543 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
5544 few years of data.</p>
5545
5546 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
5547 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
5548 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
5549 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
5550 know.  The issue is reported as
5551 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
5552 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
5553 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
5554 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
5555 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
5556
5557 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5558 check out the
5559 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5560 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5561 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
5562 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5563 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
5564
5565       </div>
5566       <div class="tags">
5567
5568
5569         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5570
5571
5572       </div>
5573     </div>
5574     <div class="padding"></div>
5575
5576     <div class="entry">
5577       <div class="title">
5578         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
5579       </div>
5580       <div class="date">
5581         15th March 2016
5582       </div>
5583       <div class="body">
5584         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
5585 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
5586 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
5587 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
5588 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
5589 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
5590 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
5591 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
5592 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
5593 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
5594 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
5595
5596 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
5597 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
5598 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
5599 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
5600 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
5601 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
5602 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
5603 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
5604 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
5605 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
5606 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
5607
5608 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
5609
5610 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
5611 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
5612 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
5613 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
5614 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
5615 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
5616
5617 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
5618 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
5619 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
5620 and graphing.</p>
5621
5622 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
5623 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
5624 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
5625 on
5626 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5627 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
5628
5629       </div>
5630       <div class="tags">
5631
5632
5633         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5634
5635
5636       </div>
5637     </div>
5638     <div class="padding"></div>
5639
5640     <div class="entry">
5641       <div class="title">
5642         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
5643       </div>
5644       <div class="date">
5645         19th February 2016
5646       </div>
5647       <div class="body">
5648         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
5649 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
5650 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
5651 the code in the package in question, preferably in
5652 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
5653 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
5654
5655 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
5656 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
5657 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
5658 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
5659 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
5660 out what was wrong with
5661 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
5662 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
5663 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
5664 semi-automatically.</p>
5665
5666 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
5667 file based on the code in the source package,
5668 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
5669 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
5670 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
5671 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
5672 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
5673 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
5674 option in
5675 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
5676 blog posts from 2014</a>.
5677
5678 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
5679
5680 <p><pre>
5681 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
5682 </pre></p>
5683
5684 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
5685 this might not be the best option.</p>
5686
5687 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
5688 this approach in
5689 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
5690 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
5691 dpkg-copyright' option:
5692
5693 <p><pre>
5694 cme update dpkg-copyright
5695 </pre></p>
5696
5697 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
5698 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
5699
5700 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
5701 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
5702 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
5703 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
5704 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
5705 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
5706 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
5707 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
5708 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
5709 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
5710
5711 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
5712 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
5713 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
5714 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
5715
5716 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
5717 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
5718 planet.debian.org.</p>
5719
5720 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5721 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5722 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5723
5724 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
5725 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
5726
5727 <p><pre>
5728 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
5729   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
5730 </pre></p>
5731
5732 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
5733 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
5734 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
5735 with my packages in the future.</p>
5736
5737 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
5738 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
5739 command line.</p>
5740
5741       </div>
5742       <div class="tags">
5743
5744
5745         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5746
5747
5748       </div>
5749     </div>
5750     <div class="padding"></div>
5751
5752     <div class="entry">
5753       <div class="title">
5754         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
5755       </div>
5756       <div class="date">
5757          4th February 2016
5758       </div>
5759       <div class="body">
5760         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
5761 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
5762 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
5763 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
5764 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
5765 about. :)</p>
5766
5767 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
5768 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
5769 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
5770 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
5771 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
5772 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
5773
5774 <blockquote><pre>
5775 % apt install appstream
5776 [...]
5777 % apt update
5778 [...]
5779 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
5780   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5781 firmware-qlogic
5782 %
5783 </pre></blockquote>
5784
5785 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
5786 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
5787 a way appstream can use.</p>
5788
5789 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
5790 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
5791 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
5792 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
5793 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
5794 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
5795
5796 <blockquote><pre>
5797 % apt install appstream
5798 [...]
5799 % apt update
5800 [...]
5801 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
5802   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5803 bkchem
5804 phototonic
5805 inkscape
5806 shutter
5807 tetzle
5808 geeqie
5809 xia
5810 pinta
5811 gthumb
5812 karbon
5813 comix
5814 mirage
5815 viewnior
5816 postr
5817 ristretto
5818 kolourpaint4
5819 eog
5820 eom
5821 gimagereader
5822 midori
5823 %
5824 </pre></blockquote>
5825
5826 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
5827 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
5828
5829       </div>
5830       <div class="tags">
5831
5832
5833         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5834
5835
5836       </div>
5837     </div>
5838     <div class="padding"></div>
5839
5840     <div class="entry">
5841       <div class="title">
5842         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
5843       </div>
5844       <div class="date">
5845         24th January 2016
5846       </div>
5847       <div class="body">
5848         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
5849 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
5850 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
5851 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
5852 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
5853 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
5854 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
5855 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
5856 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
5857 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
5858 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
5859 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
5860 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
5861 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
5862 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
5863 entities.</p>
5864
5865 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
5866
5867 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
5868 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
5869 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
5870 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
5871 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
5872 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
5873 tool to do so is called
5874 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
5875 discovered it when I read
5876 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
5877 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
5878 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
5879 The python program was in Debian, but
5880 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
5881 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
5882 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
5883 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
5884 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
5885 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
5886 are now included
5887 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
5888
5889 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
5890 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
5891 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
5892 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
5893 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
5894 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
5895 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
5896 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
5897 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
5898 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
5899 about yourself with the services.</p>
5900
5901 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
5902 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
5903 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
5904 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
5905 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
5906 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
5907 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
5908 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
5909 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
5910 things.  A similar technique have been
5911 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
5912 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
5913 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
5914 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
5915 public.</p>
5916
5917 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
5918 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
5919 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
5920 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
5921
5922 <p>(I have uploaded
5923 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
5924 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
5925 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
5926
5927       </div>
5928       <div class="tags">
5929
5930
5931         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
5932
5933
5934       </div>
5935     </div>
5936     <div class="padding"></div>
5937
5938     <div class="entry">
5939       <div class="title">
5940         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
5941       </div>
5942       <div class="date">
5943         15th January 2016
5944       </div>
5945       <div class="body">
5946         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
5947 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
5948 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
5949 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
5950 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
5951 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
5952 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
5953 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
5954 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
5955 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
5956 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
5957 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
5958 was not the first to propose this, as the
5959 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
5960 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
5961 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
5962 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
5963
5964 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
5965 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
5966 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
5967 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
5968 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
5969
5970 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
5971 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
5972 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
5973 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
5974 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
5975 done in /etc/.</p>
5976
5977 <blockquote><pre>
5978 apt install apt-transport-tor
5979 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5980 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5981 </pre></blockquote>
5982
5983 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
5984 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
5985 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
5986 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
5987
5988 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
5989 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
5990 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
5991 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
5992 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
5993 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
5994
5995 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
5996 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
5997 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
5998 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
5999 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
6000
6001 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
6002 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
6003 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
6004 system.</p>
6005
6006       </div>
6007       <div class="tags">
6008
6009
6010         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6011
6012
6013       </div>
6014     </div>
6015     <div class="padding"></div>
6016
6017     <div class="entry">
6018       <div class="title">
6019         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
6020       </div>
6021       <div class="date">
6022         23rd December 2015
6023       </div>
6024       <div class="body">
6025         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
6026 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
6027 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
6028 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
6029 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
6030 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
6031
6032 <p>A few days I came across
6033 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
6034 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
6035 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
6036 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
6037 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
6038 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
6039 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
6040 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
6041 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
6042 discovered the developer
6043 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
6044 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
6045 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
6046 archive.</p>
6047
6048 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
6049 it into Debian, where it currently
6050 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
6051 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
6052
6053 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
6054 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
6055 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
6056 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
6057 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
6058 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
6059 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
6060 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
6061 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
6062 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
6063 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
6064 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
6065
6066 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
6067 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
6068 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
6069 package show up in unstable.</p>
6070
6071       </div>
6072       <div class="tags">
6073
6074
6075         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6076
6077
6078       </div>
6079     </div>
6080     <div class="padding"></div>
6081
6082     <div class="entry">
6083       <div class="title">
6084         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
6085       </div>
6086       <div class="date">
6087         20th December 2015
6088       </div>
6089       <div class="body">
6090         <p>Around three years ago, I created
6091 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
6092 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
6093 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
6094 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
6095 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
6096 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
6097 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
6098 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
6099 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
6100 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
6101 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
6102 with.</p>
6103
6104 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
6105 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
6106 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
6107 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
6108 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
6109 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
6110 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
6111 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
6112 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
6113 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
6114 Debian version of appstream.</p>
6115
6116 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
6117 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
6118 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
6119 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
6120 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
6121 how do add the required
6122 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
6123 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
6124 this content:</p>
6125
6126 <blockquote><pre>
6127 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
6128 &lt;component&gt;
6129   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
6130   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
6131   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
6132   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
6133   &lt;description&gt;
6134     &lt;p&gt;
6135       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
6136       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
6137       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
6138       launcher.
6139     &lt;/p&gt;
6140   &lt;/description&gt;
6141   &lt;provides&gt;
6142     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
6143   &lt;/provides&gt;
6144 &lt;/component&gt;
6145 </pre></blockquote>
6146
6147 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
6148 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
6149 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
6150 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
6151 0202.</p>
6152
6153 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
6154 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
6155 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
6156 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
6157 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
6158 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
6159 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
6160 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
6161
6162 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
6163 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
6164 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
6165 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
6166 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
6167
6168 <blockquote><pre>
6169 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
6170 </pre></blockquote>
6171
6172 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
6173 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
6174 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
6175 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
6176 question.</p>
6177
6178 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
6179 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
6180
6181 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
6182 try running this command on the command line:</p>
6183
6184 <blockquote><pre>
6185 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
6186 </pre></blockquote>
6187
6188 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
6189 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
6190 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
6191
6192       </div>
6193       <div class="tags">
6194
6195
6196         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6197
6198
6199       </div>
6200     </div>
6201     <div class="padding"></div>
6202
6203     <div class="entry">
6204       <div class="title">
6205         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
6206       </div>
6207       <div class="date">
6208         30th November 2015
6209       </div>
6210       <div class="body">
6211         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
6212 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
6213 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
6214 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
6215 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
6216
6217 <blockquote>
6218
6219 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
6220
6221 <blockquote>
6222 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
6223
6224 The first step is to choose a
6225 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
6226 code.<br/>
6227
6228 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
6229 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
6230
6231 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
6232 work<br/>
6233
6234 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
6235 </blockquote>
6236
6237 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
6238 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
6239 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
6240 0x57</a></small></p>
6241
6242 <p>As the Debian Website
6243 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
6244 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
6245 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
6246 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
6247 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
6248 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
6249 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
6250 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
6251 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
6252 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
6253 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
6254 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
6255 Freedom">FaiF</a>
6256 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
6257 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
6258 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
6259 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
6260 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
6261 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
6262 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
6263 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
6264 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
6265 In March the SFC supported a
6266 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
6267 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
6268 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
6269 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
6270 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
6271 conferences
6272 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
6273 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
6274 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
6275 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
6276 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
6277 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
6278 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
6279 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
6280 Software.</p>
6281
6282 <p>If you support Free Software,
6283 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
6284 what the SFC do, agree with their
6285 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
6286 principles</a>, are happy about their
6287 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
6288 work on a project that is an SFC
6289 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
6290 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
6291 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
6292 Allan Webber</a>,
6293 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
6294 Smith</a>,
6295 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
6296 Bacon</a>, myself and
6297 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
6298 becoming a
6299 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
6300 next week your donation will be
6301 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
6302 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
6303 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
6304 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
6305 social media accounts.</p>
6306
6307 </blockquote>
6308
6309 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
6310 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
6311 supporter too?</p>
6312
6313       </div>
6314       <div class="tags">
6315
6316
6317         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
6318
6319
6320       </div>
6321     </div>
6322     <div class="padding"></div>
6323
6324     <div class="entry">
6325       <div class="title">
6326         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
6327       </div>
6328       <div class="date">
6329         17th November 2015
6330       </div>
6331       <div class="body">
6332         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
6333 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
6334 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
6335 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
6336 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
6337 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
6338 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
6339 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
6340 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
6341 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
6342
6343 <pre>
6344 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
6345       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
6346 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
6347 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
6348 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6349 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6350 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6351 </pre>
6352
6353 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
6354 my old key.</p>
6355
6356 <p>If you signed my old key
6357 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
6358 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
6359 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
6360 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
6361
6362       </div>
6363       <div class="tags">
6364
6365
6366         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6367
6368
6369       </div>
6370     </div>
6371     <div class="padding"></div>
6372
6373     <div class="entry">
6374       <div class="title">
6375         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
6376       </div>
6377       <div class="date">
6378         24th September 2015
6379       </div>
6380       <div class="body">
6381         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
6382 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
6383 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
6384 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
6385 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
6386 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
6387 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
6388
6389 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
6390
6391 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
6392 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
6393 by someone else.  I found
6394 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
6395 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
6396 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
6397 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
6398 from him.  Via
6399 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
6400 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
6401 discovered
6402 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
6403 available in Debian.</p>
6404
6405 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
6406 battery stats ever since. Now my
6407 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
6408 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
6409 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
6410 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
6411
6412 <pre>
6413 #!/bin/sh
6414 # Inspired by
6415 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
6416 # See also
6417 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
6418 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
6419
6420 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
6421     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
6422
6423 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
6424     (
6425         printf "timestamp,"
6426         for f in $files; do
6427             printf "%s," $f
6428         done
6429         echo
6430     ) > "$logfile"
6431 fi
6432
6433 log_battery() {
6434     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
6435     # when several log processes run in parallel.
6436     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
6437         for f in $files; do \
6438             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
6439         done)
6440     echo "$msg"
6441 }
6442
6443 cd /sys/class/power_supply
6444
6445 for bat in BAT*; do
6446     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
6447 done
6448 </pre>
6449
6450 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
6451 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
6452 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
6453 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
6454 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
6455 The code for the Debian package
6456 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
6457 available on github</a>.</p>
6458
6459 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
6460
6461 <pre>
6462 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
6463 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
6464 [...]
6465 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6466 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6467 </pre>
6468
6469 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
6470 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
6471 battery.</p>
6472
6473 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
6474 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
6475 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
6476 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
6477 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
6478 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
6479 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
6480 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
6481 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
6482 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
6483 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
6484 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
6485 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
6486 Linux too.</p>
6487
6488 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
6489 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
6490 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
6491 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
6492 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
6493 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
6494 load).</p>
6495
6496 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
6497 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
6498 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
6499 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
6500 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
6501 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
6502 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
6503 those.</p>
6504
6505 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
6506 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
6507 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
6508 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
6509 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
6510 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
6511 specific.</p>
6512
6513       </div>
6514       <div class="tags">
6515
6516
6517         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6518
6519
6520       </div>
6521     </div>
6522     <div class="padding"></div>
6523
6524     <div class="entry">
6525       <div class="title">
6526         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
6527       </div>
6528       <div class="date">
6529          5th July 2015
6530       </div>
6531       <div class="body">
6532         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
6533 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
6534 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
6535 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
6536 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
6537 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
6538 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
6539 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
6540 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
6541 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
6542 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
6543
6544 <p>One tip I got was to use the
6545 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
6546 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
6547 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
6548 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
6549 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
6550 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
6551
6552 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
6553 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
6554 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
6555 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
6556 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
6557 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
6558 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
6559 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
6560 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
6561 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
6562 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
6563 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
6564 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
6565 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
6566 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
6567
6568 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
6569 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
6570 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
6571 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
6572
6573 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
6574 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
6575
6576 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
6577 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
6578 different
6579 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
6580 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
6581
6582       </div>
6583       <div class="tags">
6584
6585
6586         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6587
6588
6589       </div>
6590     </div>
6591     <div class="padding"></div>
6592
6593     <div class="entry">
6594       <div class="title">
6595         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
6596       </div>
6597       <div class="date">
6598          3rd July 2015
6599       </div>
6600       <div class="body">
6601         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
6602 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
6603 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
6604 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
6605 flickering.</p>
6606
6607 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
6608 still as
6609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
6610 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
6611 good help from
6612 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
6613 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
6614 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
6615 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
6616 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
6617 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
6618 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
6619 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
6620 deteriorated since X41.</p>
6621
6622 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
6623 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
6624 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
6625 have suggestions.</p>
6626
6627 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
6628 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
6629 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
6630
6631       </div>
6632       <div class="tags">
6633
6634
6635         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6636
6637
6638       </div>
6639     </div>
6640     <div class="padding"></div>
6641
6642     <div class="entry">
6643       <div class="title">
6644         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
6645       </div>
6646       <div class="date">
6647         22nd November 2014
6648       </div>
6649       <div class="body">
6650         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
6651 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
6652 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
6653 courtesy of
6654 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
6655 Schubert</a> and
6656 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
6657 McVittie</a>.
6658
6659 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
6660 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
6661 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
6662 you upgrade:</p>
6663
6664 <p><blockquote><pre>
6665 Package: systemd-sysv
6666 Pin: release o=Debian
6667 Pin-Priority: -1
6668 </pre></blockquote><p>
6669
6670 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
6671 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
6672 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
6673 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
6674 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
6675
6676 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
6677 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
6678 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
6679 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
6680 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
6681 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
6682
6683 <p><blockquote><pre>
6684 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
6685 </pre></blockquote><p>
6686
6687 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
6688
6689 <p><blockquote><pre>
6690 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
6691 </pre></blockquote><p>
6692
6693 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
6694 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
6695
6696 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
6697 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
6698 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
6699 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
6700 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
6701 Jessie is released.</p>
6702
6703 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
6704 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
6705 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
6706 line.</p>
6707
6708       </div>
6709       <div class="tags">
6710
6711
6712         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6713
6714
6715       </div>
6716     </div>
6717     <div class="padding"></div>
6718
6719     <div class="entry">
6720       <div class="title">
6721         <a href="https://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>
6722       </div>
6723       <div class="date">
6724         10th November 2014
6725       </div>
6726       <div class="body">
6727         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
6728 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
6729 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
6730
6731 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
6732 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
6733 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
6734 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
6735 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
6736 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
6737 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
6738 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
6739 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
6740 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
6741 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
6742 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
6743 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
6744 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
6745 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
6746
6747 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
6748 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
6749 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
6750 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
6751 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
6752 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
6753 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
6754 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
6755 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
6756 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
6757 were fairly easy, and
6758 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
6759 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
6760 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
6761 useful approach.</p>
6762
6763 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
6764 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
6765 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
6766 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
6767 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
6768 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
6769 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
6770 this:</p>
6771
6772 <p><blockquote><pre>
6773 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
6774   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
6775 </pre></blockquote></p>
6776
6777 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
6778 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
6779
6780 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
6781 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
6782 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
6783 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
6784 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
6785 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
6786 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
6787 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
6788 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
6789 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
6790 system.</p>
6791
6792 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
6793 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
6794 SMTorP. :)</p>
6795
6796       </div>
6797       <div class="tags">
6798
6799
6800         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6801
6802
6803       </div>
6804     </div>
6805     <div class="padding"></div>
6806
6807     <div class="entry">
6808       <div class="title">
6809         <a href="https://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>
6810       </div>
6811       <div class="date">
6812         22nd October 2014
6813       </div>
6814       <div class="body">
6815         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
6816 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
6817 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
6818 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
6819 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
6820 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
6821 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
6822 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
6823 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
6824 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
6825 lists I recently took over:</p>
6826
6827 <p><blockquote><pre>
6828 % time listadmin xiph
6829 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6830 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6831
6832 real    0m1.709s
6833 user    0m0.232s
6834 sys     0m0.012s
6835 %
6836 </pre></blockquote></p>
6837
6838 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
6839 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
6840 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
6841 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
6842 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
6843 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
6844 program.</p>
6845
6846 <p>If you install
6847 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
6848 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
6849 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
6850
6851 <p><blockquote><pre>
6852 username username@example.org
6853 spamlevel 23
6854 default discard
6855 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
6856
6857 password secret
6858 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
6859 mailman-list@lists.example.com
6860
6861 password hidden
6862 other-list@otherserver.example.org
6863 </pre></blockquote></p>
6864
6865 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
6866 learn the details.</p>
6867
6868 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
6869 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
6870 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
6871 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
6872
6873 <p><blockquote><pre>
6874 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
6875 </pre></blockquote></p>
6876
6877 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
6878 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
6879 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
6880 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
6881 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
6882 email.</p>
6883
6884 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
6885 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
6886 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
6887 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
6888 software.</p>
6889
6890 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6891 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6892 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6893
6894 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
6895 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
6896 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
6897 sure why.</p>
6898
6899       </div>
6900       <div class="tags">
6901
6902
6903         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6904
6905
6906       </div>
6907     </div>
6908     <div class="padding"></div>
6909
6910     <div class="entry">
6911       <div class="title">
6912         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
6913       </div>
6914       <div class="date">
6915         17th October 2014
6916       </div>
6917       <div class="body">
6918         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
6919 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
6920 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
6921 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
6922 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
6923 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
6924 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
6925
6926 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
6927 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
6928 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
6929 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
6930 of this story.)</p>
6931
6932 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
6933 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
6934 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
6935 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
6936 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
6937 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
6938 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
6939 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
6940 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
6941 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
6942
6943 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
6944 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
6945 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
6946 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
6947
6948 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
6949 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
6950
6951 <p><blockquote><pre>
6952 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
6953 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
6954 </pre></blockquote></p>
6955
6956 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
6957 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
6958 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
6959 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
6960 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
6961 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
6962 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
6963 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
6964
6965 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
6966 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
6967
6968 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
6969 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
6970 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
6971 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
6972 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
6973
6974 <p><blockquote><pre>
6975 Task: isenkram-packages
6976 Section: hardware
6977 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6978  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
6979  proposed.
6980 Test-new-install: show show
6981 Relevance: 8
6982 Packages: for-current-hardware
6983
6984 Task: isenkram-firmware
6985 Section: hardware
6986 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6987  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
6988  packages are proposed.
6989 Test-new-install: mark show
6990 Relevance: 8
6991 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
6992 </pre></blockquote></p>
6993
6994 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
6995 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
6996 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
6997 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
6998 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
6999
7000 <p><blockquote><pre>
7001 #!/bin/sh
7002 #
7003 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
7004 export PATH
7005 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7006 </pre></blockquote></p>
7007
7008 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
7009 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
7010
7011 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
7012 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
7013 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
7014 install.</p>
7015
7016 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
7017 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
7018 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
7019
7020       </div>
7021       <div class="tags">
7022
7023
7024         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
7025
7026
7027       </div>
7028     </div>
7029     <div class="padding"></div>
7030
7031     <div class="entry">
7032       <div class="title">
7033         <a href="https://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>
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="date">
7036          4th October 2014
7037       </div>
7038       <div class="body">
7039         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
7040 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
7041 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
7042 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
7043
7044 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
7045
7046 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
7047 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
7048 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
7049
7050       </div>
7051       <div class="tags">
7052
7053
7054         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7055
7056
7057       </div>
7058     </div>
7059     <div class="padding"></div>
7060
7061     <div class="entry">
7062       <div class="title">
7063         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
7064       </div>
7065       <div class="date">
7066          4th October 2014
7067       </div>
7068       <div class="body">
7069         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
7070 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
7071 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
7072 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
7073 Dibb.</p>
7074
7075 <p>I just wrapped up
7076 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
7077 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
7078 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
7079 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
7080 0.17.</p>
7081
7082 <ul>
7083
7084  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
7085  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
7086    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
7087  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
7088  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
7089  <li>Fix include orders</li>
7090  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
7091  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
7092  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
7093    the palette size is the same.</li>
7094  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
7095  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
7096  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
7097  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
7098    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
7099
7100 </ul>
7101
7102 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
7103 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
7104 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
7105
7106       </div>
7107       <div class="tags">
7108
7109
7110         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7111
7112
7113       </div>
7114     </div>
7115     <div class="padding"></div>
7116
7117     <div class="entry">
7118       <div class="title">
7119         <a href="https://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>
7120       </div>
7121       <div class="date">
7122         26th September 2014
7123       </div>
7124       <div class="body">
7125         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7126 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
7127 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
7128 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
7129 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
7130 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
7131 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
7132 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
7133 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
7134 future.  The
7135 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
7136 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
7137 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
7138 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
7139 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
7140
7141 <p>First, download the test ISO via
7142 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
7143 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
7144 or rsync (use
7145 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
7146 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
7147 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
7148 install with some tweaking.</p>
7149
7150 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
7151 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
7152
7153 <p><blockquote><pre>
7154 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
7155 </pre></blockquote></p>
7156
7157 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
7158 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
7159 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
7160 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
7161
7162 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
7163 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
7164 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
7165 your need.</p>
7166
7167 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
7168 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
7169 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
7170 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
7171 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
7172 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
7173 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
7174 days.</p>
7175
7176 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
7177 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
7178 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
7179 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
7180 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
7181 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
7182 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
7183 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
7184 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
7185
7186 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
7187 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
7188 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
7189
7190       </div>
7191       <div class="tags">
7192
7193
7194         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7195
7196
7197       </div>
7198     </div>
7199     <div class="padding"></div>
7200
7201     <div class="entry">
7202       <div class="title">
7203         <a href="https://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>
7204       </div>
7205       <div class="date">
7206         25th September 2014
7207       </div>
7208       <div class="body">
7209         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
7210 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
7211 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
7212 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
7213 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
7214 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
7215 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
7216 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
7217 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
7218 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
7219 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
7220 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
7221 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
7222
7223 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
7224 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
7225 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
7226 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
7227 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
7228 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
7229 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
7230 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
7231 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
7232 list</a>. :)</p>
7233
7234       </div>
7235       <div class="tags">
7236
7237
7238         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7239
7240
7241       </div>
7242     </div>
7243     <div class="padding"></div>
7244
7245     <div class="entry">
7246       <div class="title">
7247         <a href="https://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>
7248       </div>
7249       <div class="date">
7250         16th September 2014
7251       </div>
7252       <div class="body">
7253         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
7254 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
7255 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
7256 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
7257 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
7258 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
7259 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
7260 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
7261 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
7262 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
7263 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
7264 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
7265 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
7266 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
7267
7268 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
7269 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
7270 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
7271 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
7272 depend on the small and clever package
7273 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
7274 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
7275 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
7276 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
7277 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
7278 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
7279 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
7280 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
7281 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
7282 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
7283 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
7284
7285 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
7286 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
7287 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
7288 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
7289 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
7290 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
7291 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
7292 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
7293 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
7294 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
7295 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
7296 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
7297 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
7298 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
7299 dialog.</p>
7300
7301 <p><table>
7302
7303 <tr>
7304 <th>Machine/setup</th>
7305 <th>Original tasksel</th>
7306 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
7307 <th>Reduction</th>
7308 </tr>
7309
7310 <tr>
7311 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
7312 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
7313 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
7314 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
7315 </tr>
7316
7317 <tr>
7318 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
7319 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
7320 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
7321 <td>23 min 40%</td>
7322 </tr>
7323
7324 <tr>
7325 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
7326 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
7327 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
7328 <td>11 min 50%</td>
7329 </tr>
7330
7331 <tr>
7332 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
7333 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
7334 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
7335 <td>2 min 33%</td>
7336 </tr>
7337
7338 <tr>
7339 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
7340 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
7341 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
7342 <td>4 min 21%</td>
7343 </tr>
7344
7345 </table></p>
7346
7347 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
7348 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
7349 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
7350 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
7351 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
7352 installed.</p>
7353
7354 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
7355 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
7356 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
7357 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
7358 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
7359 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
7360 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
7361 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
7362 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
7363 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
7364 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
7365 for the entire installation.</p>
7366
7367 <p>I've implemented this in the
7368 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
7369 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
7370 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
7371 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
7372 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
7373
7374 <p><blockquote><pre>
7375 #!/bin/sh
7376 set -e
7377 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7378 info() {
7379     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
7380 }
7381 error() {
7382     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
7383 }
7384 override_install() {
7385     apt-install eatmydata || true
7386     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
7387         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7388             file=/usr/bin/$bin
7389             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
7390             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
7391                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
7392                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
7393                     > /target$file.edu
7394                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
7395                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7396                     --rename --quiet --add $file
7397                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
7398             else
7399                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
7400             fi
7401         done
7402     else
7403         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
7404     fi
7405 }
7406
7407 override_install
7408 </pre></blockquote></p>
7409
7410 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
7411 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
7412
7413 <p><blockquote><pre>
7414 #! /bin/sh -e
7415 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7416 error() {
7417     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
7418 }
7419 remove_install_override() {
7420     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7421         file=/usr/bin/$bin
7422         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
7423             rm /target$file
7424             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7425                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
7426             rm /target$file.edu
7427         else
7428             error "Missing divert for $file."
7429         fi
7430     done
7431     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
7432 }
7433
7434 remove_install_override
7435 </pre></blockquote></p>
7436
7437 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
7438 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
7439 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
7440
7441 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
7442 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
7443 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
7444 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
7445 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
7446 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
7447 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
7448 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
7449 everyone.</p>
7450
7451 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
7452 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
7453 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
7454 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
7455
7456 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
7457 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
7458 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
7459 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
7460 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
7461
7462 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
7463 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
7464 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
7465 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
7466 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
7467
7468       </div>
7469       <div class="tags">
7470
7471
7472         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7473
7474
7475       </div>
7476     </div>
7477     <div class="padding"></div>
7478
7479     <div class="entry">
7480       <div class="title">
7481         <a href="https://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>
7482       </div>
7483       <div class="date">
7484         10th September 2014
7485       </div>
7486       <div class="body">
7487         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
7488 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
7489 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
7490 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
7491 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
7492 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
7493 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
7494 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
7495 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
7496 those problems are gone now.</p>
7497
7498 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
7499 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
7500 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
7501 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
7502 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
7503
7504 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
7505 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
7506 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
7507
7508 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
7509 line:</p>
7510
7511 <p><blockquote><pre>
7512 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
7513 </pre></blockquote></p>
7514
7515 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
7516 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
7517 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
7518 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
7519
7520 <p><blockquote><pre>
7521 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
7522 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
7523 %
7524 </pre></blockquote></p>
7525
7526 <p>Now if only
7527 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
7528 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
7529 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
7530 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
7531 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
7532 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
7533 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
7534 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
7535 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
7536
7537       </div>
7538       <div class="tags">
7539
7540
7541         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7542
7543
7544       </div>
7545     </div>
7546     <div class="padding"></div>
7547
7548     <div class="entry">
7549       <div class="title">
7550         <a href="https://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>
7551       </div>
7552       <div class="date">
7553         17th June 2014
7554       </div>
7555       <div class="body">
7556         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7557 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
7558 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
7559 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
7560 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
7561
7562 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
7563 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
7564 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
7565 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
7566 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
7567 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
7568 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
7569 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
7570 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
7571 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
7572 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
7573 goals.</p>
7574
7575 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
7576 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
7577 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
7578 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
7579 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
7580 chapters together into one large web page (aka
7581 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
7582 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
7583 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
7584 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
7585 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
7586 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
7587 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
7588 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
7589 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
7590 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
7591 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
7592 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
7593 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
7594 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
7595 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
7596 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
7597 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
7598 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
7599
7600 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
7601 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
7602 track the English original.  For this we use the
7603 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
7604 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
7605 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
7606 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
7607 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
7608 files), which the translations update with the native language
7609 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
7610 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
7611 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
7612 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
7613 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
7614 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
7615 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
7616 of the documentation.</p>
7617
7618 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
7619 recommend using
7620 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
7621 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
7622 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
7623 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
7624 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
7625 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
7626 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
7627 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
7628
7629 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
7630 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
7631 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
7632 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
7633 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
7634 translated images by storing translated versions in
7635 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
7636 package maintainers know more.</p>
7637
7638 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
7639 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
7640 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
7641 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
7642 PDF version</a> or the
7643 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
7644 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
7645 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
7646
7647 <p>To learn more, check out
7648 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
7649 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
7650 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
7651 manual on the wiki</a> and
7652 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
7653 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
7654
7655       </div>
7656       <div class="tags">
7657
7658
7659         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7660
7661
7662       </div>
7663     </div>
7664     <div class="padding"></div>
7665
7666     <div class="entry">
7667       <div class="title">
7668         <a href="https://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>
7669       </div>
7670       <div class="date">
7671         23rd April 2014
7672       </div>
7673       <div class="body">
7674         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
7675 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
7676 So I implemented one, using
7677 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
7678 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
7679 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
7680 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
7681 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
7682 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
7683
7684 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
7685 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
7686 packages to install.  The first part is in
7687 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
7688 this:</p>
7689
7690 <p><blockquote><pre>
7691 Task: isenkram
7692 Section: hardware
7693 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7694  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
7695  proposed.
7696 Test-new-install: mark show
7697 Relevance: 8
7698 Packages: for-current-hardware
7699 </pre></blockquote></p>
7700
7701 <p>The second part is in
7702 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
7703 this:</p>
7704
7705 <p><blockquote><pre>
7706 #!/bin/sh
7707 #
7708 (
7709     isenkram-lookup
7710     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7711 ) | sort -u
7712 </pre></blockquote></p>
7713
7714 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
7715 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
7716 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
7717 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
7718 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
7719 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
7720
7721 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
7722 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
7723 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
7724 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
7725 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
7726 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
7727 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
7728 the python-apt code (bug
7729 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
7730 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
7731 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
7732 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
7733 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
7734 unstable today.</p>
7735
7736 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
7737 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
7738 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
7739 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
7740 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
7741 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
7742 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
7743 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
7744 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
7745
7746 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
7747 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
7748 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
7749 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
7750 package.  See also
7751 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
7752 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
7753 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
7754 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
7755
7756       </div>
7757       <div class="tags">
7758
7759
7760         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7761
7762
7763       </div>
7764     </div>
7765     <div class="padding"></div>
7766
7767     <div class="entry">
7768       <div class="title">
7769         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
7770       </div>
7771       <div class="date">
7772         15th April 2014
7773       </div>
7774       <div class="body">
7775         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7776 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
7777 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
7778 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
7779 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
7780 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
7781
7782 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
7783 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
7784 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
7785 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
7786 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
7787 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
7788 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
7789
7790 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
7791 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
7792 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
7793 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
7794 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
7795 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
7796 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
7797 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
7798 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
7799 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
7800 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
7801 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
7802
7803 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
7804 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
7805 become root:</p>
7806
7807 <p><pre>
7808 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7809   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7810   u-boot-tools
7811 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7812   freedom-maker
7813 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7814 </pre></p>
7815
7816 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7817 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
7818 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
7819 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
7820 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
7821 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
7822 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
7823 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
7824
7825 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7826 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7827 the preseed values:</p>
7828
7829 <p><pre>
7830 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7831 </pre></p>
7832
7833 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
7834 it still work.</p>
7835
7836 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
7837 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
7838 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
7839 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
7840 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
7841 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
7842 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
7843
7844 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7845 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7846 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7847 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7848 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7849 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7850
7851       </div>
7852       <div class="tags">
7853
7854
7855         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7856
7857
7858       </div>
7859     </div>
7860     <div class="padding"></div>
7861
7862     <div class="entry">
7863       <div class="title">
7864         <a href="https://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>
7865       </div>
7866       <div class="date">
7867          9th April 2014
7868       </div>
7869       <div class="body">
7870         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
7871 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
7872 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
7873 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
7874 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
7875 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
7876 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
7877 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
7878 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
7879 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
7880 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
7881 have looked at a system called
7882 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
7883 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
7884
7885 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
7886 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
7887 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
7888 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
7889 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
7890 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
7891 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
7892 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
7893 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
7894 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
7895 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
7896 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
7897 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
7898
7899 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
7900 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
7901 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
7902 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
7903 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
7904 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
7905 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
7906 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
7907 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
7908 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
7909 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
7910 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
7911 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
7912 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
7913 account.</p>
7914
7915 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
7916 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
7917 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
7918 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
7919 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
7920 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
7921 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
7922
7923 <p><blockquote><pre>
7924 [s3c]
7925 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7926 backend-login: API-login
7927 backend-password: API-password
7928 fs-passphrase: local-password
7929 </pre></blockquote></p>
7930
7931 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
7932 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
7933 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
7934 details and password to create it:</p>
7935
7936 <p><blockquote><pre>
7937 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
7938 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7939   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7940 Enter backend login:
7941 Enter backend password:
7942 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
7943 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
7944 Enter encryption password:
7945 Confirm encryption password:
7946 Generating random encryption key...
7947 Creating metadata tables...
7948 Dumping metadata...
7949 ..objects..
7950 ..blocks..
7951 ..inodes..
7952 ..inode_blocks..
7953 ..symlink_targets..
7954 ..names..
7955 ..contents..
7956 ..ext_attributes..
7957 Compressing and uploading metadata...
7958 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
7959 # </pre></blockquote></p>
7960
7961 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
7962
7963 <p><blockquote><pre>
7964 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7965   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
7966 Using 4 upload threads.
7967 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
7968 Reading metadata...
7969 ..objects..
7970 ..blocks..
7971 ..inodes..
7972 ..inode_blocks..
7973 ..symlink_targets..
7974 ..names..
7975 ..contents..
7976 ..ext_attributes..
7977 Mounting filesystem...
7978 # df -h /s3ql
7979 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
7980 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
7981 #
7982 </pre></blockquote></p>
7983
7984 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
7985 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
7986 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
7987 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
7988 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
7989 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
7990
7991 <p><blockquote><pre>
7992 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
7993 #
7994 </pre></blockquote></p>
7995
7996 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
7997 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
7998 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
7999 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
8000 file system:</p>
8001
8002 <p><blockquote><pre>
8003 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8004 Using cached metadata.
8005 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
8006 Checking DB integrity...
8007 Creating temporary extra indices...
8008 Checking lost+found...
8009 Checking cached objects...
8010 Checking names (refcounts)...
8011 Checking contents (names)...
8012 Checking contents (inodes)...
8013 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
8014 Checking objects (reference counts)...
8015 Checking objects (backend)...
8016 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
8017 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
8018 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
8019 Checking objects (sizes)...
8020 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
8021 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
8022 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
8023 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
8024 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
8025 Checking inodes (sizes)...
8026 Checking extended attributes (names)...
8027 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
8028 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
8029 Checking directory reachability...
8030 Checking unix conventions...
8031 Checking referential integrity...
8032 Dropping temporary indices...
8033 Backing up old metadata...
8034 Dumping metadata...
8035 ..objects..
8036 ..blocks..
8037 ..inodes..
8038 ..inode_blocks..
8039 ..symlink_targets..
8040 ..names..
8041 ..contents..
8042 ..ext_attributes..
8043 Compressing and uploading metadata...
8044 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
8045 #
8046 </pre></blockquote></p>
8047
8048 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
8049 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
8050 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
8051 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
8052 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
8053 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
8054 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
8055 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
8056 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
8057 working set.</p>
8058
8059 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
8060 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
8061 busy:</p>
8062
8063 <p><blockquote><pre>
8064 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8065   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
8066 Using 8 upload threads.
8067 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
8068 #
8069 </pre></blockquote></p>
8070
8071 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
8072 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
8073 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
8074 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
8075 s3qlctrl:
8076
8077 <p><blockquote><pre>
8078 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
8079 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
8080 #
8081 </pre></blockquote></p>
8082
8083 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
8084 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
8085 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
8086 a report:</p>
8087
8088 <p><blockquote><pre>
8089 # s3qlstat /s3ql
8090 Directory entries:    9141
8091 Inodes:               9143
8092 Data blocks:          8851
8093 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
8094 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
8095 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
8096 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
8097 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
8098 #
8099 </pre></blockquote></p>
8100
8101 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
8102 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
8103 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
8104 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
8105 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
8106 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
8107 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
8108 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
8109 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
8110 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
8111 best.</p>
8112
8113 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
8114 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
8115 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
8116 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
8117 poster is titled
8118 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
8119 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
8120 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
8121 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
8122 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
8123
8124 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
8125 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
8126 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
8127 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
8128 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
8129 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
8130 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
8131 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
8132
8133 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
8134 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
8135 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
8136 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
8137 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
8138 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
8139 only read from it.</p>
8140
8141 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8142 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8143 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8144
8145       </div>
8146       <div class="tags">
8147
8148
8149         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
8150
8151
8152       </div>
8153     </div>
8154     <div class="padding"></div>
8155
8156     <div class="entry">
8157       <div class="title">
8158         <a href="https://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>
8159       </div>
8160       <div class="date">
8161         14th March 2014
8162       </div>
8163       <div class="body">
8164         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
8165 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
8166 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
8167 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
8168 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
8169 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
8170 release (0.2).</p>
8171
8172 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
8173 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
8174 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
8175 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
8176 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
8177 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
8178 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
8179 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
8180 and build using
8181 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
8182 with a user with sudo access to become root:
8183
8184 <pre>
8185 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
8186   freedom-maker
8187 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
8188   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
8189   u-boot-tools
8190 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
8191 </pre>
8192
8193 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
8194 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
8195 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
8196 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
8197 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
8198 kpartx call.</p>
8199
8200 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
8201 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
8202 the preseed values:</p>
8203
8204 <pre>
8205 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
8206 </pre>
8207
8208 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
8209 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
8210 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
8211 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
8212 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
8213 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
8214
8215 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
8216 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
8217 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
8218 irc.debian.org)</a> and
8219 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8220 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8221
8222       </div>
8223       <div class="tags">
8224
8225
8226         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8227
8228
8229       </div>
8230     </div>
8231     <div class="padding"></div>
8232
8233     <div class="entry">
8234       <div class="title">
8235         <a href="https://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>
8236       </div>
8237       <div class="date">
8238         22nd February 2014
8239       </div>
8240       <div class="body">
8241         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
8242 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
8243 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
8244 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
8245 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
8246 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
8247 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
8248 proper home since then.</p>
8249
8250 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
8251 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
8252 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
8253 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
8254 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
8255
8256 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
8257 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
8258 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
8259 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
8260 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
8261 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
8262 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
8263 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
8264 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
8265
8266       </div>
8267       <div class="tags">
8268
8269
8270         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8271
8272
8273       </div>
8274     </div>
8275     <div class="padding"></div>
8276
8277     <div class="entry">
8278       <div class="title">
8279         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
8280       </div>
8281       <div class="date">
8282          3rd February 2014
8283       </div>
8284       <div class="body">
8285         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
8286 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
8287 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
8288 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
8289 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
8290 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
8291 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
8292 <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>,
8293 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
8294
8295 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
8296 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
8297 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
8298 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
8299 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
8300 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
8301
8302 <p><blockquote><pre>
8303 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
8304 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
8305 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
8306 dhclient /dev/eth0
8307 </pre></blockquote></p>
8308
8309 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
8310 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
8311 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
8312
8313 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
8314 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
8315 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
8316 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
8317 side.</p>
8318
8319 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
8320 stuff:</p>
8321
8322 <p><blockquote><pre>
8323 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8324 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
8325 EOF
8326 apt-get update
8327 apt-get dist-upgrade
8328 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
8329     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
8330 update-alternatives --config runsystem
8331 </pre></blockquote></p>
8332
8333 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
8334 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
8335 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
8336 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
8337 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
8338 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
8339 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
8340 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
8341 ssh instead.
8342
8343 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
8344 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
8345 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
8346 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
8347 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
8348 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
8349
8350 <p><blockquote><pre>
8351 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8352 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
8353 EOF
8354 </pre></blockquote></p>
8355
8356 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
8357 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
8358 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
8359 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
8360
8361 <p><blockquote><pre>
8362 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
8363 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
8364 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
8365 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
8366 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
8367 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
8368 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
8369 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
8370 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
8371 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
8372 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
8373 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
8374 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
8375 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
8376 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
8377 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
8378 #
8379 </pre></blockquote></p>
8380
8381 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
8382 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
8383 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
8384 command line stuff.<p>
8385
8386       </div>
8387       <div class="tags">
8388
8389
8390         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8391
8392
8393       </div>
8394     </div>
8395     <div class="padding"></div>
8396
8397     <div class="entry">
8398       <div class="title">
8399         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
8400       </div>
8401       <div class="date">
8402         14th January 2014
8403       </div>
8404       <div class="body">
8405         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
8406 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
8407 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
8408 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
8409 the source.  The company behind it provide
8410 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
8411 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
8412 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
8413 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
8414 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
8415 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
8416 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
8417 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
8418 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
8419 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
8420 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
8421 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
8422 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
8423 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
8424 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
8425 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
8426 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
8427 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
8428 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
8429
8430 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
8431
8432 <ul>
8433
8434   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
8435   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
8436   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
8437
8438 </ul>
8439
8440 <p>You can
8441 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8442 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8443 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8444 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8445 include a test suite check.</p>
8446
8447       </div>
8448       <div class="tags">
8449
8450
8451         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8452
8453
8454       </div>
8455     </div>
8456     <div class="padding"></div>
8457
8458     <div class="entry">
8459       <div class="title">
8460         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
8461       </div>
8462       <div class="date">
8463         24th November 2013
8464       </div>
8465       <div class="body">
8466         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
8467 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
8468 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
8469 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
8470 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
8471 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
8472 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
8473 is working on.  I checked the
8474 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
8475 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
8476 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
8477 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
8478 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
8479 These are the release notes:</p>
8480
8481 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
8482
8483 <ul>
8484
8485   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
8486    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
8487    up.</li>
8488
8489   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
8490
8491   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
8492    Matthias Klose.</li>
8493
8494   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
8495    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
8496
8497   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
8498    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
8499    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
8500
8501 </ul>
8502
8503 <p>You can
8504 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8505 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8506 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8507 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8508 include a testsuite check.</p>
8509
8510       </div>
8511       <div class="tags">
8512
8513
8514         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8515
8516
8517       </div>
8518     </div>
8519     <div class="padding"></div>
8520
8521     <div class="entry">
8522       <div class="title">
8523         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
8524       </div>
8525       <div class="date">
8526          2nd November 2013
8527       </div>
8528       <div class="body">
8529         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
8530 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
8531 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
8532 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
8533 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
8534
8535 <p><pre>
8536 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
8537 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
8538 # Provides:          rsyslog
8539 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
8540 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
8541 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
8542 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
8543 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
8544 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
8545 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
8546 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
8547 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
8548 ### END INIT INFO
8549 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
8550 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
8551 </pre></p>
8552
8553 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
8554 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
8555 info/comments.</p>
8556
8557 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
8558 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
8559
8560 <p><pre>
8561 #!/bin/sh
8562
8563 # Define LSB log_* functions.
8564 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
8565 # and status_of_proc is working.
8566 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
8567
8568 #
8569 # Function that starts the daemon/service
8570
8571 #
8572 do_start()
8573 {
8574         # Return
8575         #   0 if daemon has been started
8576         #   1 if daemon was already running
8577         #   2 if daemon could not be started
8578         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
8579                 || return 1
8580         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
8581                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
8582                 || return 2
8583         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
8584         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
8585         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
8586 }
8587
8588 #
8589 # Function that stops the daemon/service
8590 #
8591 do_stop()
8592 {
8593         # Return
8594         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
8595         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
8596         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
8597         #   other if a failure occurred
8598         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8599         RETVAL="$?"
8600         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
8601         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
8602         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
8603         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
8604         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
8605         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
8606         # sleep for some time.
8607         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
8608         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
8609         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
8610         rm -f $PIDFILE
8611         return "$RETVAL"
8612 }
8613
8614 #
8615 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
8616 #
8617 do_reload() {
8618         #
8619         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
8620         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
8621         # then implement that here.
8622         #
8623         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8624         return 0
8625 }
8626
8627 SCRIPTNAME=$1
8628 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
8629 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
8630 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
8631     script="$1"
8632     shift
8633     . $script
8634 else
8635     exit 0
8636 fi
8637
8638 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
8639 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
8640
8641 # Exit if the package is not installed
8642 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
8643
8644 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
8645 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
8646
8647 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
8648 . /lib/init/vars.sh
8649
8650 case "$1" in
8651   start)
8652         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
8653         do_start
8654         case "$?" in
8655                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8656                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8657         esac
8658         ;;
8659   stop)
8660         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
8661         do_stop
8662         case "$?" in
8663                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8664                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8665         esac
8666         ;;
8667   status)
8668         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
8669         ;;
8670   #reload|force-reload)
8671         #
8672         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
8673         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
8674         #
8675         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
8676         #do_reload
8677         #log_end_msg $?
8678         #;;
8679   restart|force-reload)
8680         #
8681         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
8682         # 'force-reload' alias
8683         #
8684         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
8685         do_stop
8686         case "$?" in
8687           0|1)
8688                 do_start
8689                 case "$?" in
8690                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
8691                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
8692                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
8693                 esac
8694                 ;;
8695           *)
8696                 # Failed to stop
8697                 log_end_msg 1
8698                 ;;
8699         esac
8700         ;;
8701   *)
8702         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
8703         exit 3
8704         ;;
8705 esac
8706
8707 :
8708 </pre></p>
8709
8710 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
8711 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
8712 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
8713 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
8714
8715 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
8716 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
8717 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
8718 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
8719 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
8720
8721       </div>
8722       <div class="tags">
8723
8724
8725         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8726
8727
8728       </div>
8729     </div>
8730     <div class="padding"></div>
8731
8732     <div class="entry">
8733       <div class="title">
8734         <a href="https://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>
8735       </div>
8736       <div class="date">
8737          1st November 2013
8738       </div>
8739       <div class="body">
8740         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
8741 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
8742 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
8743 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
8744 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
8745 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
8746 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
8747 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
8748 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
8749 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
8750 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
8751 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
8752
8753 <p>The source is now available from
8754 <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>
8755
8756       </div>
8757       <div class="tags">
8758
8759
8760         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8761
8762
8763       </div>
8764     </div>
8765     <div class="padding"></div>
8766
8767     <div class="entry">
8768       <div class="title">
8769         <a href="https://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>
8770       </div>
8771       <div class="date">
8772         27th October 2013
8773       </div>
8774       <div class="body">
8775         <p>The
8776 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
8777 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
8778 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
8779 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
8780 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
8781 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
8782 of a plan to simplify the build system for
8783 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
8784 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
8785 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
8786 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
8787 Raspberry Pi.</p>
8788
8789 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
8790 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
8791 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
8792 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
8793 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
8794 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
8795 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
8796 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
8797 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
8798 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
8799 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
8800 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
8801 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
8802 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
8803 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
8804 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
8805 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
8806 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
8807 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
8808 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
8809 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
8810 available from
8811 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
8812 upstream project page</a>.</p>
8813
8814 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
8815 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
8816 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
8817 list:</p>
8818
8819 <p><pre>
8820 #!/bin/sh
8821 set -e # Exit on first error
8822 rootdir="$1"
8823 cd "$rootdir"
8824 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
8825 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
8826 EOF
8827 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
8828 # install a kernel somewhere too.
8829 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
8830     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8831 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8832 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
8833 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
8834 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
8835 </pre></p>
8836
8837 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
8838 to build the image:</p>
8839
8840 <pre>
8841 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
8842     --variant minbase \
8843     --arch armel \
8844     --distribution jessie \
8845     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
8846     --image test.img \
8847     --size 600M \
8848     --bootsize 64M \
8849     --boottype vfat \
8850     --log-level debug \
8851     --verbose \
8852     --no-kernel \
8853     --no-extlinux \
8854     --root-password raspberry \
8855     --hostname raspberrypi \
8856     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
8857     --customize `pwd`/customize \
8858     --package netbase \
8859     --package git-core \
8860     --package binutils \
8861     --package ca-certificates \
8862     --package wget \
8863     --package kmod
8864 </pre></p>
8865
8866 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
8867 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
8868 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
8869 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
8870 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
8871 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
8872 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
8873
8874 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
8875 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
8876 build dependency list.</p>
8877
8878 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
8879 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
8880 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
8881 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
8882
8883       </div>
8884       <div class="tags">
8885
8886
8887         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
8888
8889
8890       </div>
8891     </div>
8892     <div class="padding"></div>
8893
8894     <div class="entry">
8895       <div class="title">
8896         <a href="https://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>
8897       </div>
8898       <div class="date">
8899         15th October 2013
8900       </div>
8901       <div class="body">
8902         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
8903 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
8904 these. :)</p>
8905
8906 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
8907 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
8908 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
8909 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
8910 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
8911 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
8912 hope you will to. :)</p>
8913
8914 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
8915 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
8916 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
8917 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
8918 donated.  Are you next?</p>
8919
8920 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
8921 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
8922 statement under the heading
8923 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
8924 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
8925 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
8926 too.</p>
8927
8928       </div>
8929       <div class="tags">
8930
8931
8932         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
8933
8934
8935       </div>
8936     </div>
8937     <div class="padding"></div>
8938
8939     <div class="entry">
8940       <div class="title">
8941         <a href="https://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>
8942       </div>
8943       <div class="date">
8944         27th September 2013
8945       </div>
8946       <div class="body">
8947         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
8948 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
8949 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
8950 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
8951
8952 <ul>
8953
8954 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
8955 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
8956
8957 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
8958 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8959
8960 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
8961 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
8962 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
8963 (Youtube)</li>
8964
8965 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
8966 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
8967
8968 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
8969 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8970
8971 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
8972 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
8973 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
8974
8975 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
8976 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
8977 (Youtube)</li>
8978
8979 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
8980 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
8981
8982 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
8983 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
8984
8985 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
8986 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
8987 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
8988
8989 </ul>
8990
8991 <p>A larger list is available from
8992 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
8993 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
8994
8995 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
8996 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
8997 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
8998 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
8999 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
9000 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
9001 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
9002 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
9003 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
9004 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
9005 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
9006
9007       </div>
9008       <div class="tags">
9009
9010
9011         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9012
9013
9014       </div>
9015     </div>
9016     <div class="padding"></div>
9017
9018     <div class="entry">
9019       <div class="title">
9020         <a href="https://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>
9021       </div>
9022       <div class="date">
9023         10th September 2013
9024       </div>
9025       <div class="body">
9026         <p>I was introduced to the
9027 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
9028 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
9029 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
9030 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
9031 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
9032 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
9033 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
9034 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
9035
9036 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
9037 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
9038 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
9039 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
9040 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
9041
9042 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
9043 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
9044 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
9045 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
9046 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
9047 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
9048 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
9049 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
9050 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
9051 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
9052 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
9053 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
9054 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
9055 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
9056 missing in Debian).</p>
9057
9058 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
9059 scripts
9060 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
9061 and a administrative web interface
9062 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
9063 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
9064 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
9065 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
9066 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
9067 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
9068 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
9069 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
9070 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
9071 this is really working yet, see
9072 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
9073 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
9074 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
9075 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
9076 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
9077 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
9078 with lots of half baked features.</p>
9079
9080 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
9081 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
9082 at.</p>
9083
9084 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
9085
9086 <ol>
9087
9088 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
9089 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
9090 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
9091 to the Debian installer:<p>
9092 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
9093
9094 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
9095 install on.</li>
9096
9097 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
9098 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
9099
9100 </ol>
9101
9102 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
9103
9104 <ol>
9105
9106 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
9107 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
9108 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
9109 <pre>
9110 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
9111 </pre></li>
9112 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
9113 <pre>
9114 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
9115    apt-key add -
9116 apt-get update
9117 apt-get install freedombox-setup
9118 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
9119 </pre></li>
9120 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
9121
9122 </ol>
9123
9124 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
9125 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
9126 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
9127 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
9128 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
9129
9130 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
9131 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
9132 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
9133 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
9134
9135 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
9136 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
9137 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
9138 irc.debian.org and the
9139 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
9140 mailing list</a>.</p>
9141
9142 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
9143 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
9144 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
9145 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
9146 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
9147 default password is 'secret'.</p>
9148
9149       </div>
9150       <div class="tags">
9151
9152
9153         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9154
9155
9156       </div>
9157     </div>
9158     <div class="padding"></div>
9159
9160     <div class="entry">
9161       <div class="title">
9162         <a href="https://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>
9163       </div>
9164       <div class="date">
9165         18th August 2013
9166       </div>
9167       <div class="body">
9168         <p>Earlier, I reported about
9169 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
9170 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
9171 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
9172 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
9173 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
9174 currently on the disk.</p>
9175
9176 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
9177 <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>
9178 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
9179 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
9180 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
9181 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
9182 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
9183 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
9184 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
9185 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
9186 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
9187 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
9188 the broken disks.</p>
9189
9190       </div>
9191       <div class="tags">
9192
9193
9194         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9195
9196
9197       </div>
9198     </div>
9199     <div class="padding"></div>
9200
9201     <div class="entry">
9202       <div class="title">
9203         <a href="https://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>
9204       </div>
9205       <div class="date">
9206         17th July 2013
9207       </div>
9208       <div class="body">
9209         <p>Today I switched to
9210 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
9211 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
9212 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
9213 <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
9214 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
9215 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
9216 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
9217 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
9218 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
9219 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
9220 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
9221 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
9222 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
9223 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
9224 station from now on.</p>
9225
9226 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
9227 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
9228 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
9229 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
9230 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
9231 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
9232 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
9233 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
9234 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
9235 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
9236 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
9237 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
9238
9239 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
9240 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
9241 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
9242 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
9243 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
9244 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
9245 parameters are tuned:</p>
9246
9247 <ul>
9248
9249 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
9250     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
9251
9252 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
9253     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
9254     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
9255
9256 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
9257     systems.</li>
9258
9259 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
9260     /etc/fstab.</li>
9261
9262 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
9263
9264 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
9265     cron.daily).</li>
9266
9267 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
9268     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
9269
9270 </ul>
9271
9272 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
9273 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
9274 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
9275 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
9276 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
9277 from getting the data on the disk (see
9278 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
9279 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
9280 right thing to do.</p>
9281
9282 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
9283 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
9284 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
9285
9286 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
9287 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
9288 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
9289 instead of during my work.</p>
9290
9291 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
9292 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
9293
9294 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
9295 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
9296 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
9297
9298 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
9299 there.</p>
9300
9301 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
9302 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
9303 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
9304 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
9305 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
9306 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
9307 back.</p>
9308
9309       </div>
9310       <div class="tags">
9311
9312
9313         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9314
9315
9316       </div>
9317     </div>
9318     <div class="padding"></div>
9319
9320     <div class="entry">
9321       <div class="title">
9322         <a href="https://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>
9323       </div>
9324       <div class="date">
9325         10th July 2013
9326       </div>
9327       <div class="body">
9328         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
9329 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
9330 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
9331 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
9332 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
9333 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
9334 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
9335 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
9336
9337 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
9338 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
9339 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
9340 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
9341 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
9342 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
9343 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
9344 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
9345 lock up when I download a new
9346 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
9347 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
9348 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
9349
9350 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9351 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
9352 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9353 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
9354 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9355 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9356
9357 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9358 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
9359 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9360 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
9361 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9362 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9363
9364 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
9365 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
9366 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
9367 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
9368 exist).</p>
9369
9370       </div>
9371       <div class="tags">
9372
9373
9374         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9375
9376
9377       </div>
9378     </div>
9379     <div class="padding"></div>
9380
9381     <div class="entry">
9382       <div class="title">
9383         <a href="https://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>
9384       </div>
9385       <div class="date">
9386          9th July 2013
9387       </div>
9388       <div class="body">
9389         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
9390 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
9391 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
9392 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
9393 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9394 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
9395 Bitraf</a>.</p>
9396
9397 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
9398 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
9399 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
9400 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
9401 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
9402
9403       </div>
9404       <div class="tags">
9405
9406
9407         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9408
9409
9410       </div>
9411     </div>
9412     <div class="padding"></div>
9413
9414     <div class="entry">
9415       <div class="title">
9416         <a href="https://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>
9417       </div>
9418       <div class="date">
9419          5th July 2013
9420       </div>
9421       <div class="body">
9422         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
9423 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
9424 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
9425 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
9426 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
9427 ended up picking a
9428 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
9429 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
9430 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
9431 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
9432 on that below.</p>
9433
9434 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9435 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9436 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9437 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9438 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9439 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
9440 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
9441 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
9442 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
9443
9444 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
9445 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
9446 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
9447 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
9448 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
9449 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
9450 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
9451
9452 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
9453 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
9454
9455 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
9456 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
9457 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
9458 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
9459 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
9460 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
9461 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
9462 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
9463 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
9464 kernel developers as
9465 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
9466 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
9467 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
9468 Lenovo forums, both for
9469 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
9470 2012-11-10</a> and for
9471 <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
9472 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
9473 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
9474 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
9475 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
9476 There is even a
9477 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
9478 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
9479 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
9480
9481 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
9482 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
9483 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
9484 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
9485 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
9486 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
9487 fixed. :)</p>
9488
9489       </div>
9490       <div class="tags">
9491
9492
9493         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9494
9495
9496       </div>
9497     </div>
9498     <div class="padding"></div>
9499
9500     <div class="entry">
9501       <div class="title">
9502         <a href="https://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>
9503       </div>
9504       <div class="date">
9505          4th July 2013
9506       </div>
9507       <div class="body">
9508         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
9509 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
9510 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
9511 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
9512 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
9513 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
9514 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
9515 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
9516 with an expencive door stop.</p>
9517
9518 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9519 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9520 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9521 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9522 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9523 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
9524 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
9525
9526 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
9527 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
9528 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
9529 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
9530 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
9531 new laptop now. :)</p>
9532
9533 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
9534
9535       </div>
9536       <div class="tags">
9537
9538
9539         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9540
9541
9542       </div>
9543     </div>
9544     <div class="padding"></div>
9545
9546     <div class="entry">
9547       <div class="title">
9548         <a href="https://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>
9549       </div>
9550       <div class="date">
9551         25th June 2013
9552       </div>
9553       <div class="body">
9554         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
9555 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
9556 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
9557 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
9558 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
9559 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
9560 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
9561 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
9562 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
9563 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
9564 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
9565
9566 <p><pre>
9567 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9568 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
9569 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
9570 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
9571 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
9572 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
9573 firmware-ipw2x00
9574 firmware-ipw2x00
9575 Preconfiguring packages ...
9576 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
9577 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
9578 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
9579 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
9580 #
9581 </pre></p>
9582
9583 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
9584 printed instead:</p>
9585
9586 <p><pre>
9587 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9588 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
9589 #
9590 </pre></p>
9591
9592 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
9593 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
9594
9595 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
9596 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
9597 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
9598 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
9599 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
9600 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
9601 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
9602 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
9603 machine.</p>
9604
9605 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
9606 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
9607 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
9608 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
9609 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
9610 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
9611
9612       </div>
9613       <div class="tags">
9614
9615
9616         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9617
9618
9619       </div>
9620     </div>
9621     <div class="padding"></div>
9622
9623     <div class="entry">
9624       <div class="title">
9625         <a href="https://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>
9626       </div>
9627       <div class="date">
9628         11th June 2013
9629       </div>
9630       <div class="body">
9631         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
9632 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
9633 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
9634 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
9635 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
9636 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
9637 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
9638 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
9639 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
9640 i915 driver used by the
9641 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9642 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
9643
9644 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
9645 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
9646 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
9647 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
9648 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
9649
9650 <pre>
9651 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
9652 update-initramfs -u -k all
9653 </pre>
9654
9655 <p>Since March 2012 there is
9656 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
9657 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
9658 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
9659 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
9660 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
9661 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
9662 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
9663 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
9664 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
9665 number.</p>
9666
9667 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
9668 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
9669
9670 <p><pre>
9671 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
9672     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
9673     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
9674  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
9675  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
9676     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
9677  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
9678     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
9679  Latency: 0
9680  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
9681  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
9682  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
9683  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
9684  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
9685  Capabilities: <access denied>
9686  Kernel driver in use: i915
9687 </pre></p>
9688
9689 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
9690
9691 <p><pre>
9692 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
9693        ...
9694         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
9695         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
9696        ...
9697 }
9698 </pre></p>
9699
9700 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
9701 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
9702 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
9703 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
9704 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
9705 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
9706 yet shown up in
9707 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
9708 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
9709 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
9710 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
9711 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
9712 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
9713
9714 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
9715 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
9716 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
9717 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
9718 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
9719 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
9720 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
9721 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
9722 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
9723 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
9724 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
9725 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
9726
9727 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
9728 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
9729 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
9730 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
9731 backlight.</p>
9732
9733       </div>
9734       <div class="tags">
9735
9736
9737         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9738
9739
9740       </div>
9741     </div>
9742     <div class="padding"></div>
9743
9744     <div class="entry">
9745       <div class="title">
9746         <a href="https://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>
9747       </div>
9748       <div class="date">
9749         27th May 2013
9750       </div>
9751       <div class="body">
9752         <p>Two days ago, I asked
9753 <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
9754 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
9755 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
9756 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
9757 and Windows 8.</p>
9758
9759 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
9760 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
9761 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
9762 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
9763 enough to tell.</p>
9764
9765 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
9766 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
9767 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
9768 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
9769 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
9770 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
9771 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
9772 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
9773 to follow.</p>
9774
9775 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
9776 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
9777 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
9778 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
9779 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
9780 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
9781 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
9782 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
9783
9784 <p>I've updated the
9785 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
9786 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
9787 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
9788 machine.</p>
9789
9790 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
9791 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
9792
9793       </div>
9794       <div class="tags">
9795
9796
9797         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9798
9799
9800       </div>
9801     </div>
9802     <div class="padding"></div>
9803
9804     <div class="entry">
9805       <div class="title">
9806         <a href="https://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>
9807       </div>
9808       <div class="date">
9809         25th May 2013
9810       </div>
9811       <div class="body">
9812         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
9813 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
9814 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
9815 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
9816 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
9817 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
9818
9819 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
9820 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
9821 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
9822 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
9823 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
9824 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
9825 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
9826 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
9827 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
9828 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
9829
9830 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
9831 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9832 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
9833 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
9834 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
9835 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
9836
9837 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
9838 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
9839 on new Laptops?</p>
9840
9841       </div>
9842       <div class="tags">
9843
9844
9845         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9846
9847
9848       </div>
9849     </div>
9850     <div class="padding"></div>
9851
9852     <div class="entry">
9853       <div class="title">
9854         <a href="https://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>
9855       </div>
9856       <div class="date">
9857         17th May 2013
9858       </div>
9859       <div class="body">
9860         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
9861 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
9862 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
9863 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
9864 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
9865 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
9866 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
9867 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
9868 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
9869 donate some money</a>.
9870
9871 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
9872 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
9873 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
9874 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
9875 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
9876
9877 <p>The script,
9878 <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/>
9879 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
9880 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
9881 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
9882
9883 <ol>
9884
9885 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
9886 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
9887 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
9888     our configuration.</li>
9889 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
9890     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
9891     according to the profile specified in the config above,
9892     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
9893 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
9894     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
9895 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
9896
9897 </ol>
9898
9899 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
9900 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
9901 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
9902 the needed packages.</p>
9903
9904 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
9905 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
9906 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
9907 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
9908 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
9909 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
9910
9911 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
9912 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
9913 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
9914
9915 <p><pre>
9916 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
9917 DESKTOP="lxde"
9918 </pre></p>
9919
9920 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
9921 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
9922 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
9923 boot.</p>
9924
9925       </div>
9926       <div class="tags">
9927
9928
9929         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9930
9931
9932       </div>
9933     </div>
9934     <div class="padding"></div>
9935
9936     <div class="entry">
9937       <div class="title">
9938         <a href="https://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>
9939       </div>
9940       <div class="date">
9941         11th May 2013
9942       </div>
9943       <div class="body">
9944         <P>In January,
9945 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
9946 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
9947 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
9948 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
9949 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
9950 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
9951 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
9952 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
9953 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
9954 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
9955 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
9956 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
9957
9958 <p><table>
9959 <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>
9960 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
9961 <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>
9962 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
9963 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
9964 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
9965 <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>
9966 <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>
9967 <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>
9968 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
9969 </table></p>
9970
9971 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
9972 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
9973 available in experimental.</p>
9974
9975 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
9976 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
9977 for LEGO designers.</p>
9978
9979       </div>
9980       <div class="tags">
9981
9982
9983         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9984
9985
9986       </div>
9987     </div>
9988     <div class="padding"></div>
9989
9990     <div class="entry">
9991       <div class="title">
9992         <a href="https://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>
9993       </div>
9994       <div class="date">
9995          5th May 2013
9996       </div>
9997       <div class="body">
9998         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
9999 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
10000 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
10001 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
10002 soon.</p>
10003
10004 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
10005 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
10006 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
10007 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
10008 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
10009 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
10010 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
10011 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
10012 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
10013 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
10014 Edu.</a>
10015
10016 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
10017 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
10018 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
10019 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
10020 follow.<p>
10021
10022       </div>
10023       <div class="tags">
10024
10025
10026         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10027
10028
10029       </div>
10030     </div>
10031     <div class="padding"></div>
10032
10033     <div class="entry">
10034       <div class="title">
10035         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
10036       </div>
10037       <div class="date">
10038          3rd April 2013
10039       </div>
10040       <div class="body">
10041         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
10042 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
10043 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
10044 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
10045
10046 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
10047 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
10048 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
10049 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
10050 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
10051 BTS. :)</p>
10052
10053       </div>
10054       <div class="tags">
10055
10056
10057         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10058
10059
10060       </div>
10061     </div>
10062     <div class="padding"></div>
10063
10064     <div class="entry">
10065       <div class="title">
10066         <a href="https://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>
10067       </div>
10068       <div class="date">
10069          2nd February 2013
10070       </div>
10071       <div class="body">
10072         <p>My
10073 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
10074 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
10075 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
10076 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
10077 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
10078 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
10079 version too.</p>
10080
10081 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
10082 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
10083 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
10084 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
10085 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
10086 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
10087 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
10088 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
10089
10090 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
10091 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
10092 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
10093 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
10094 it. :)</p>
10095
10096 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
10097 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
10098 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10099
10100       </div>
10101       <div class="tags">
10102
10103
10104         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10105
10106
10107       </div>
10108     </div>
10109     <div class="padding"></div>
10110
10111     <div class="entry">
10112       <div class="title">
10113         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
10114       </div>
10115       <div class="date">
10116         22nd January 2013
10117       </div>
10118       <div class="body">
10119         <p>Yesterday, I
10120 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
10121 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
10122 pluggable hardware devices, which I
10123 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
10124 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
10125 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
10126 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
10127 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
10128 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
10129 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
10130 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
10131 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
10132 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
10133
10134 <pre>
10135 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
10136 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
10137 </pre>
10138
10139 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
10140 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
10141 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
10142 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
10143
10144 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
10145 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
10146 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
10147 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
10148 word.</p>
10149
10150 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
10151 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
10152 process.</p>
10153
10154 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
10155 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
10156
10157       </div>
10158       <div class="tags">
10159
10160
10161         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10162
10163
10164       </div>
10165     </div>
10166     <div class="padding"></div>
10167
10168     <div class="entry">
10169       <div class="title">
10170         <a href="https://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>
10171       </div>
10172       <div class="date">
10173         21st January 2013
10174       </div>
10175       <div class="body">
10176         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
10177 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
10178 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
10179 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
10180 it, fetch the
10181 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
10182 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
10183 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
10184 autostart script.</p>
10185
10186 <p>The design is simple:</p>
10187
10188 <ul>
10189
10190 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
10191 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
10192
10193 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
10194 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
10195 initially did.</li>
10196
10197 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
10198 the APT database, a database
10199 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
10200 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
10201
10202 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
10203 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
10204 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
10205 package or packages.</li>
10206
10207 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
10208 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
10209
10210 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
10211 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
10212
10213 </ul>
10214
10215 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
10216 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
10217 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
10218 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
10219
10220 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
10221 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
10222 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
10223 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
10224 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
10225
10226 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
10227 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
10228 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
10229 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
10230 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
10231 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
10232 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
10233 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
10234
10235 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
10236 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
10237 '<tt>svn checkout
10238 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
10239 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
10240 devscripts package.</p>
10241
10242 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
10243 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
10244 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
10245 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
10246 instructions</a> for details.</p>
10247
10248       </div>
10249       <div class="tags">
10250
10251
10252         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10253
10254
10255       </div>
10256     </div>
10257     <div class="padding"></div>
10258
10259     <div class="entry">
10260       <div class="title">
10261         <a href="https://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>
10262       </div>
10263       <div class="date">
10264         19th January 2013
10265       </div>
10266       <div class="body">
10267         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
10268 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
10269 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
10270 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
10271 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
10272 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
10273 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
10274 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
10275 not a durable solution.
10276
10277 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
10278 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
10279
10280 <ul>
10281
10282 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
10283   than A4).</li>
10284 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
10285 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
10286 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
10287 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
10288 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
10289 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
10290 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
10291 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
10292 size).</li>
10293 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
10294   X.org packages.</li>
10295 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
10296   the time).
10297
10298 </ul>
10299
10300 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
10301 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
10302 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
10303 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
10304 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
10305 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
10306 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
10307 still be useful.</p>
10308
10309 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
10310 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
10311 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
10312 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
10313 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
10314 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
10315
10316       </div>
10317       <div class="tags">
10318
10319
10320         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10321
10322
10323       </div>
10324     </div>
10325     <div class="padding"></div>
10326
10327     <div class="entry">
10328       <div class="title">
10329         <a href="https://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>
10330       </div>
10331       <div class="date">
10332         18th January 2013
10333       </div>
10334       <div class="body">
10335         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
10336 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
10337 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
10338 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
10339 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
10340 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
10341 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
10342
10343 <pre>
10344 #!/usr/bin/python
10345 import sys
10346 import apt
10347 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10348     cache = apt.Cache()
10349     cache.open(None)
10350     thepkgs = []
10351     for pkg in cache:
10352         version = pkg.candidate
10353         if version is None:
10354             version = pkg.installed
10355         if version is None:
10356             continue
10357         record = version.record
10358         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
10359             continue
10360         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
10361         for t in mime_types:
10362             t = t.rstrip().strip()
10363             if t == mimetype:
10364                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
10365     return thepkgs
10366 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
10367 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
10368     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
10369 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
10370 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10371     print "  %s" %pkg
10372 </pre>
10373
10374 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
10375
10376 <pre>
10377 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
10378 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
10379   gecko-mediaplayer
10380 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
10381 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
10382   browser-plugin-gnash
10383 %
10384 </pre>
10385
10386 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
10387 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
10388 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
10389 anyone working on adding it?</p>
10390
10391 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
10392 request for icweasel support for this feature is
10393 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
10394 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
10395 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
10396 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
10397
10398       </div>
10399       <div class="tags">
10400
10401
10402         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10403
10404
10405       </div>
10406     </div>
10407     <div class="padding"></div>
10408
10409     <div class="entry">
10410       <div class="title">
10411         <a href="https://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>
10412       </div>
10413       <div class="date">
10414         16th January 2013
10415       </div>
10416       <div class="body">
10417         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
10418 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
10419 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
10420 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
10421 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
10422 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
10423 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
10424 downloaded by the browser.</p>
10425
10426 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
10427 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
10428 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
10429 can be found on the
10430 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
10431 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
10432 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
10433 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
10434 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
10435
10436 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
10437
10438 <pre>
10439   count MIME type
10440   ----- -----------------------
10441      32 text/plain
10442      30 audio/mpeg
10443      29 image/png
10444      28 image/jpeg
10445      27 application/ogg
10446      26 audio/x-mp3
10447      25 image/tiff
10448      25 image/gif
10449      22 image/bmp
10450      22 audio/x-wav
10451      20 audio/x-flac
10452      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10453      18 video/x-ms-asf
10454      18 audio/x-musepack
10455      18 audio/x-mpeg
10456      18 application/x-ogg
10457      17 video/mpeg
10458      17 audio/x-scpls
10459      17 audio/ogg
10460      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10461 </pre>
10462
10463 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
10464
10465 <pre>
10466   count MIME type
10467   ----- -----------------------
10468      33 text/plain
10469      32 image/png
10470      32 image/jpeg
10471      29 audio/mpeg
10472      27 image/gif
10473      26 image/tiff
10474      26 application/ogg
10475      25 audio/x-mp3
10476      22 image/bmp
10477      21 audio/x-wav
10478      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10479      19 audio/x-mpeg
10480      18 video/mpeg
10481      18 audio/x-scpls
10482      18 audio/x-flac
10483      18 application/x-ogg
10484      17 video/x-ms-asf
10485      17 text/html
10486      17 audio/x-musepack
10487      16 image/x-xbitmap
10488 </pre>
10489
10490 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
10491
10492 <pre>
10493   count MIME type
10494   ----- -----------------------
10495      31 text/plain
10496      31 image/png
10497      31 image/jpeg
10498      29 audio/mpeg
10499      28 application/ogg
10500      27 image/gif
10501      26 image/tiff
10502      26 audio/x-mp3
10503      23 audio/x-wav
10504      22 image/bmp
10505      21 audio/x-flac
10506      20 audio/x-mpegurl
10507      19 audio/x-mpeg
10508      18 video/x-ms-asf
10509      18 video/mpeg
10510      18 audio/x-scpls
10511      18 application/x-ogg
10512      17 audio/x-musepack
10513      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10514      16 video/x-msvideo
10515 </pre>
10516
10517 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
10518 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
10519 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
10520 issues.</p>
10521
10522 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
10523 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
10524
10525       </div>
10526       <div class="tags">
10527
10528
10529         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10530
10531
10532       </div>
10533     </div>
10534     <div class="padding"></div>
10535
10536     <div class="entry">
10537       <div class="title">
10538         <a href="https://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>
10539       </div>
10540       <div class="date">
10541         15th January 2013
10542       </div>
10543       <div class="body">
10544         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
10545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
10546 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
10547 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
10548 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
10549 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
10550 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
10551 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
10552 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
10553 packages.</p>
10554
10555 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
10556 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
10557 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
10558 modalias.</p>
10559
10560 <p><blockquote>
10561 Package: package-name
10562 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
10563 </blockquote></p>
10564
10565 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
10566 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
10567
10568 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
10569 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
10570
10571 <p><blockquote>
10572 Package: cheese
10573 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
10574 </blockquote></p>
10575
10576 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
10577 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
10578
10579 <p><blockquote>
10580 Package: pcmciautils
10581 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
10582 </blockquote></p>
10583
10584 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
10585 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
10586
10587 <p><blockquote>
10588 Package: colorhug-client
10589 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
10590 </blockquote></p>
10591
10592 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
10593 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
10594 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
10595
10596 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
10597 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
10598 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
10599 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
10600 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
10601 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
10602 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
10603 Raring.</p>
10604
10605 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
10606 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
10607 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
10608 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
10609 try the
10610 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
10611 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
10612 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
10613 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
10614
10615 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
10616 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
10617
10618 <p><blockquote>
10619 % ./hw-support-lookup
10620 <br>yubikey-personalization
10621 <br>%
10622 </blockquote></p>
10623
10624 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
10625 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
10626
10627 <p><blockquote>
10628 % ./hw-support-lookup
10629 <br>pcmciautils
10630 <br>%
10631 </blockquote></p>
10632
10633 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
10634 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
10635 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
10636
10637 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
10638 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
10639 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
10640 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
10641 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
10642 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
10643 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
10644 see if it work.</p>
10645
10646 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10647 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10648 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10649 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10650
10651       </div>
10652       <div class="tags">
10653
10654
10655         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10656
10657
10658       </div>
10659     </div>
10660     <div class="padding"></div>
10661
10662     <div class="entry">
10663       <div class="title">
10664         <a href="https://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>
10665       </div>
10666       <div class="date">
10667         14th January 2013
10668       </div>
10669       <div class="body">
10670         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
10671 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
10672 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
10673 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
10674 in
10675 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
10676 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
10677
10678 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
10679
10680 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
10681 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
10682 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
10683 &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;,
10684 &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
10685 &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;.
10686
10687 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
10688 this shell script:</p>
10689
10690 <pre>
10691 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
10692 </pre>
10693
10694 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
10695 using modinfo:</p>
10696
10697 <pre>
10698 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
10699 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
10700 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
10701 %
10702 </pre>
10703
10704 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
10705
10706 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
10707 Bridge memory controller:</p>
10708
10709 <p><blockquote>
10710 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
10711 </blockquote></p>
10712
10713 <p>This represent these values:</p>
10714
10715 <pre>
10716  v   00008086  (vendor)
10717  d   00002770  (device)
10718  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
10719  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
10720  bc  06        (bus class)
10721  sc  00        (bus subclass)
10722  i   00        (interface)
10723 </pre>
10724
10725 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
10726 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
10727 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
10728 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
10729
10730 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
10731 means.</p>
10732
10733 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
10734
10735 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
10736 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
10737
10738 <p><blockquote>
10739 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
10740 </blockquote></p>
10741
10742 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
10743
10744 <pre>
10745  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
10746  p    0001  (device product)
10747  d    0206  (bcddevice)
10748  dc     09  (device class)
10749  dsc    00  (device subclass)
10750  dp     00  (device protocol)
10751  ic     09  (interface class)
10752  isc    00  (interface subclass)
10753  ip     00  (interface protocol)
10754 </pre>
10755
10756 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
10757 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
10758 these alias entries show up:</p>
10759
10760 <p><blockquote>
10761 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
10762 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
10763 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
10764 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
10765 </blockquote></p>
10766
10767 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
10768 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
10769 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
10770
10771 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
10772
10773 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
10774 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
10775
10776 <p><blockquote>
10777 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10778 </blockquote></p>
10779
10780 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
10781
10782 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
10783
10784 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
10785 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
10786 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
10787
10788 <p><blockquote>
10789 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
10790 </blockquote></p>
10791
10792 <p>The values present are</p>
10793
10794 <pre>
10795  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
10796  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
10797  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
10798  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
10799  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
10800  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
10801  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
10802  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
10803  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
10804  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
10805  ct   10             (chassis type)
10806  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
10807 </pre>
10808
10809 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
10810 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
10811
10812 <pre>
10813   3 Desktop
10814   4 Low Profile Desktop
10815   5 Pizza Box
10816   6 Mini Tower
10817   7 Tower
10818   8 Portable
10819   9 Laptop
10820  10 Notebook
10821  11 Hand Held
10822  12 Docking Station
10823  13 All In One
10824  14 Sub Notebook
10825  15 Space-saving
10826  16 Lunch Box
10827  17 Main Server Chassis
10828  18 Expansion Chassis
10829  19 Sub Chassis
10830  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
10831  21 Peripheral Chassis
10832  22 RAID Chassis
10833  23 Rack Mount Chassis
10834  24 Sealed-case PC
10835  25 Multi-system
10836  26 CompactPCI
10837  27 AdvancedTCA
10838  28 Blade
10839  29 Blade Enclosing
10840 </pre>
10841
10842 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
10843 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
10844 claim it is a desktop.</p>
10845
10846 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
10847
10848 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
10849 test machine:</p>
10850
10851 <p><blockquote>
10852 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
10853 </blockquote></p>
10854
10855 <p>The values present are</p>
10856
10857 <pre>
10858   ty  01  (type)
10859   pr  00  (prototype)
10860   id  00  (id)
10861   ex  00  (extra)
10862 </pre>
10863
10864 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
10865 the valid values are.</p>
10866
10867 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
10868
10869 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
10870 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
10871 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
10872 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
10873 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
10874 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
10875 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
10876
10877 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
10878
10879 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
10880 one can use the following shell script:</p>
10881
10882 <pre>
10883   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
10884     echo "$id" ; \
10885     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
10886   done
10887 </pre>
10888
10889 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
10890 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
10891
10892 <pre>
10893   acpi:ACPI0003:
10894     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
10895   acpi:device:
10896   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
10897   acpi:IBM0068:
10898     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
10899     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
10900     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
10901     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
10902   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10903     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
10904     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
10905     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
10906   [...]
10907 </pre>
10908
10909 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10910 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10911 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10912 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10913
10914 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
10915 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
10916 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
10917
10918       </div>
10919       <div class="tags">
10920
10921
10922         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10923
10924
10925       </div>
10926     </div>
10927     <div class="padding"></div>
10928
10929     <div class="entry">
10930       <div class="title">
10931         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
10932       </div>
10933       <div class="date">
10934         10th January 2013
10935       </div>
10936       <div class="body">
10937         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
10938 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
10939 Launcher and updated the Debian package
10940 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
10941 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
10942 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
10943 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
10944 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
10945 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
10946 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
10947 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
10948 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
10949 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
10950 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
10951 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
10952 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
10953 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
10954 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
10955
10956       </div>
10957       <div class="tags">
10958
10959
10960         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
10961
10962
10963       </div>
10964     </div>
10965     <div class="padding"></div>
10966
10967     <div class="entry">
10968       <div class="title">
10969         <a href="https://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>
10970       </div>
10971       <div class="date">
10972          9th January 2013
10973       </div>
10974       <div class="body">
10975         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
10976 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
10977 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
10978 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
10979 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
10980 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
10981 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
10982 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
10983 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
10984 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
10985 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
10986
10987 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
10988 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
10989 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
10990 simple:
10991
10992 <ul>
10993
10994 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
10995   starting when a user log in.</li>
10996
10997 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
10998   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
10999
11000 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
11001   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
11002   packages.</li>
11003
11004 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
11005   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
11006
11007 </ul>
11008
11009 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
11010 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
11011 discover database to find packages and
11012 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
11013 packages.</p>
11014
11015 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
11016 draft package is now checked into
11017 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
11018 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
11019 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
11020 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
11021 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
11022 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
11023 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
11024 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
11025 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
11026 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
11027 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
11028 because of the freeze).</p>
11029
11030 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
11031 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
11032 inserted):</p>
11033
11034 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
11035
11036 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
11037 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
11038 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
11039
11040 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
11041 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
11042 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
11043 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
11044 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
11045 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
11046 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
11047
11048 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
11049 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
11050 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
11051 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
11052 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
11053 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
11054 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
11055 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
11056 not be installed?</p>
11057
11058 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
11059 please send me an email. :)</p>
11060
11061       </div>
11062       <div class="tags">
11063
11064
11065         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11066
11067
11068       </div>
11069     </div>
11070     <div class="padding"></div>
11071
11072     <div class="entry">
11073       <div class="title">
11074         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
11075       </div>
11076       <div class="date">
11077          2nd January 2013
11078       </div>
11079       <div class="body">
11080         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
11081 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
11082 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
11083 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
11084 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
11085 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
11086 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
11087 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
11088 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
11089 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
11090
11091 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
11092 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
11093 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
11094
11095       </div>
11096       <div class="tags">
11097
11098
11099         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
11100
11101
11102       </div>
11103     </div>
11104     <div class="padding"></div>
11105
11106     <div class="entry">
11107       <div class="title">
11108         <a href="https://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>
11109       </div>
11110       <div class="date">
11111         25th December 2012
11112       </div>
11113       <div class="body">
11114         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
11115 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
11116
11117 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
11118 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
11119 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
11120 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
11121 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
11122 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
11123 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
11124 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
11125 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
11126 name.</p>
11127
11128 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
11129 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
11130 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
11131
11132 <blockquote><pre>
11133 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
11134 cd bitcoin
11135 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
11136 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
11137 </pre></blockquote>
11138
11139 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
11140 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
11141 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
11142 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
11143 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
11144 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
11145 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
11146 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
11147 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
11148
11149 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
11150 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
11151 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11152
11153       </div>
11154       <div class="tags">
11155
11156
11157         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11158
11159
11160       </div>
11161     </div>
11162     <div class="padding"></div>
11163
11164     <div class="entry">
11165       <div class="title">
11166         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
11167       </div>
11168       <div class="date">
11169         21st December 2012
11170       </div>
11171       <div class="body">
11172         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
11173 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
11174 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
11175 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
11176 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
11177 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
11178 is now maintained by a
11179 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
11180 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
11181 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
11182 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
11183 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
11184 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
11185 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
11186 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
11187 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
11188 Corallo in a
11189 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
11190 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
11191 Debian package.</p>
11192
11193 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
11194 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
11195 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
11196 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
11197 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
11198 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
11199 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
11200 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
11201 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
11202 new version to unstable.
11203
11204 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
11205 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
11206 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
11207 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
11208 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
11209 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
11210 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
11211 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
11212 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
11213 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
11214 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
11215 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
11216 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
11217 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
11218 have not tested them.</p>
11219
11220 <p>My
11221 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
11222 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
11223 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
11224 years ago, as can be
11225 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
11226 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
11227 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
11228 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
11229 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
11230 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
11231 the same address as last time,
11232 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11233
11234       </div>
11235       <div class="tags">
11236
11237
11238         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11239
11240
11241       </div>
11242     </div>
11243     <div class="padding"></div>
11244
11245     <div class="entry">
11246       <div class="title">
11247         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11248       </div>
11249       <div class="date">
11250          7th September 2012
11251       </div>
11252       <div class="body">
11253         <p>As I
11254 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
11255 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
11256 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
11257 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
11258 repository for the project</a>.</p>
11259
11260 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
11261 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
11262 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
11263 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
11264
11265 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
11266 PostScript formats at
11267 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
11268 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
11269
11270       </div>
11271       <div class="tags">
11272
11273
11274         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11275
11276
11277       </div>
11278     </div>
11279     <div class="padding"></div>
11280
11281     <div class="entry">
11282       <div class="title">
11283         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
11284       </div>
11285       <div class="date">
11286         16th August 2012
11287       </div>
11288       <div class="body">
11289         <p>I dag fyller
11290 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
11291 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
11292 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
11293
11294       </div>
11295       <div class="tags">
11296
11297
11298         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
11299
11300
11301       </div>
11302     </div>
11303     <div class="padding"></div>
11304
11305     <div class="entry">
11306       <div class="title">
11307         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11308       </div>
11309       <div class="date">
11310         24th June 2012
11311       </div>
11312       <div class="body">
11313         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
11314 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
11315 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
11316 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
11317 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
11318 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
11319 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
11320 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
11321 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
11322 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
11323 missing in my book.</p>
11324
11325 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
11326 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
11327 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
11328 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
11329 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
11330 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
11331 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
11332
11333       </div>
11334       <div class="tags">
11335
11336
11337         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11338
11339
11340       </div>
11341     </div>
11342     <div class="padding"></div>
11343
11344     <div class="entry">
11345       <div class="title">
11346         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
11347       </div>
11348       <div class="date">
11349         21st November 2011
11350       </div>
11351       <div class="body">
11352         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
11353 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
11354 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
11355 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
11356 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
11357 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
11358 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
11359 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
11360 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
11361 the tools to do so.</p>
11362
11363 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
11364 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
11365 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
11366 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
11367
11368 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
11369 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
11370 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
11371 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
11372 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
11373 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
11374 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
11375 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
11376
11377 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
11378 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
11379 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
11380
11381 <p><pre>
11382 #!/usr/bin/perl
11383 use strict;
11384 use warnings;
11385 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
11386 BEGIN {
11387     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11388     my %rhelmodules = (
11389         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11390         );
11391     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11392         eval "use $module;";
11393         if ($@) {
11394             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11395             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11396             eval "use $module;";
11397         }
11398     }
11399 }
11400 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11401
11402 upgrade_dell();
11403
11404 exit 0;
11405
11406 sub run_firmware_script {
11407     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11408     unless ($script) {
11409         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11410         exit 1
11411     }
11412     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11413
11414     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11415         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11416     } else {
11417         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11418     }
11419 }
11420
11421 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11422     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11423     # Run firmware packages
11424     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11425         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11426         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11427         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11428             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11429             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11430         }
11431         closedir $dh;
11432     }
11433 }
11434
11435 sub download {
11436     my $url = shift;
11437     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11438     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11439 }
11440
11441 sub upgrade_dell {
11442     my @dirs;
11443     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11444     chomp $product;
11445
11446     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11447
11448         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11449         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11450
11451         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11452             CLEANUP => 1
11453             );
11454         chdir($tmpdir);
11455         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11456         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11457         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11458         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11459         my $fwopts = "-q";
11460         if (@paths) {
11461             for my $url (@paths) {
11462                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11463             }
11464             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11465         } else {
11466             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11467             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11468         }
11469         chdir('/');
11470     } else {
11471         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11472         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11473     }
11474 }
11475
11476 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11477     my $path = shift;
11478     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11479     download($url);
11480 }
11481
11482 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11483 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11484 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11485 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11486     my $filename = shift;
11487
11488     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11489     chomp $product;
11490     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11491
11492     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11493
11494     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11495     my @paths;
11496     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11497         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11498         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11499         my $oscode;
11500         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11501             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11502         } else {
11503             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11504         }
11505         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11506         {
11507             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11508         }
11509     }
11510     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11511         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11512
11513         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11514         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11515
11516         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11517         for my $path (@paths) {
11518             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11519                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11520             }
11521         }
11522     }
11523     return @paths;
11524 }
11525 </pre>
11526
11527 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11528 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11529 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11530 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11531 outdated.</p>
11532
11533       </div>
11534       <div class="tags">
11535
11536
11537         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11538
11539
11540       </div>
11541     </div>
11542     <div class="padding"></div>
11543
11544     <div class="entry">
11545       <div class="title">
11546         <a href="https://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>
11547       </div>
11548       <div class="date">
11549          4th August 2011
11550       </div>
11551       <div class="body">
11552         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11553 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11554 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11555 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11556 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11557 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11558 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11559 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11560 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11561
11562 <p><blockquote>
11563 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11564 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11565 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11566 </blockquote></p>
11567
11568 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11569 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11570 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11571 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11572 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11573 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11574 hard to explain.</p>
11575
11576 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11577 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11578 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11579 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11580 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11581 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11582 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11583 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11584 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11585 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11586 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11587 mode).</p>
11588
11589 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11590 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11591 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11592 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11593 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11594 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11595 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11596 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11597 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11598
11599 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11600 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11601 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11602 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11603 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11604 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11605 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11606 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11607
11608 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11609 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11610 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11611
11612       </div>
11613       <div class="tags">
11614
11615
11616         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11617
11618
11619       </div>
11620     </div>
11621     <div class="padding"></div>
11622
11623     <div class="entry">
11624       <div class="title">
11625         <a href="https://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>
11626       </div>
11627       <div class="date">
11628         30th July 2011
11629       </div>
11630       <div class="body">
11631         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11632 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11633 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11634 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11635 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11636 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11637 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11638 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11639 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11640 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11641 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11642 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11643 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11644
11645 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11646 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11647 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11648 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11649 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11650 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11651 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11652 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11653 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11654
11655 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11656 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11657 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11658 is presented.</p>
11659
11660 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11661 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11662 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11663 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11664 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11665 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11666 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11667 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11668 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11669 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11670 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11671 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11672 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11673 find time to push this forward.</p>
11674
11675       </div>
11676       <div class="tags">
11677
11678
11679         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11680
11681
11682       </div>
11683     </div>
11684     <div class="padding"></div>
11685
11686     <div class="entry">
11687       <div class="title">
11688         <a href="https://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>
11689       </div>
11690       <div class="date">
11691         29th July 2011
11692       </div>
11693       <div class="body">
11694         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11695 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11696 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11697 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11698 issues.</p>
11699
11700 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11701 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11702 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11703
11704 <ol>
11705
11706 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11707 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11708 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11709 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11710 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11711 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11712 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11713 Debian.</li>
11714
11715 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11716 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11717 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11718 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11719 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11720 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11721 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11722 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11723 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11724 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11725 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11726 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11727 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11728
11729 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11730 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11731 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11732 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11733 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11734 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11735 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11736 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11737 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11738 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11739
11740 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11741 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11742 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11743 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11744 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11745 latter behaviour.</li>
11746
11747 </ol>
11748
11749 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11750 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11751 it do not matter much.</p>
11752
11753 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11754 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11755 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11756
11757       </div>
11758       <div class="tags">
11759
11760
11761         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
11762
11763
11764       </div>
11765     </div>
11766     <div class="padding"></div>
11767
11768     <div class="entry">
11769       <div class="title">
11770         <a href="https://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>
11771       </div>
11772       <div class="date">
11773         26th July 2011
11774       </div>
11775       <div class="body">
11776         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11777 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11778 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11779 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11780 security support for a few years.</p>
11781
11782 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11783 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11784 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11785 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11786 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11787 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11788 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11789 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11790 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11791 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11792 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11793 easier in the future.</p>
11794
11795 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11796 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11797 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11798 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11799 do not have time for.</p>
11800
11801       </div>
11802       <div class="tags">
11803
11804
11805         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
11806
11807
11808       </div>
11809     </div>
11810     <div class="padding"></div>
11811
11812     <div class="entry">
11813       <div class="title">
11814         <a href="https://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>
11815       </div>
11816       <div class="date">
11817          3rd April 2011
11818       </div>
11819       <div class="body">
11820         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11821 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11822 update in English.</p>
11823
11824 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11825 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11826 of the British service
11827 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11828 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11829 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11830 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11831 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11832 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11833 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11834 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11835 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11836 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11837 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11838 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11839 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11840
11841 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11842 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11843 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11844 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11845 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11846 public infrastructure.</p>
11847
11848 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11849 such service?</p>
11850
11851       </div>
11852       <div class="tags">
11853
11854
11855         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
11856
11857
11858       </div>
11859     </div>
11860     <div class="padding"></div>
11861
11862     <div class="entry">
11863       <div class="title">
11864         <a href="https://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>
11865       </div>
11866       <div class="date">
11867         28th January 2011
11868       </div>
11869       <div class="body">
11870         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11871 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11872 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11873 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11874 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11875 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11876 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11877 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11878 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11879 out which security holes were present in our free software
11880 collection.</p>
11881
11882 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11883 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11884 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11885 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11886 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11887 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11888 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11889 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11890 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11891 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11892 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11893 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11894 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11895 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11896 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11897 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11898
11899 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11900 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11901 check out, one could look up
11902 <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
11903 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11904 The most recent one is
11905 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11906 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11907 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11908
11909 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11910 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11911 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11912 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11913 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11914 security issues out.</p>
11915
11916 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11917 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11918 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11919 RHEL is providing
11920 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11921 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11922 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11923
11924 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11925 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11926 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11927 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11928 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11929 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11930 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11931 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11932 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11933 established soon.</p>
11934
11935 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
11936 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
11937 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
11938 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
11939 for their packages.</p>
11940
11941       </div>
11942       <div class="tags">
11943
11944
11945         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
11946
11947
11948       </div>
11949     </div>
11950     <div class="padding"></div>
11951
11952     <div class="entry">
11953       <div class="title">
11954         <a href="https://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>
11955       </div>
11956       <div class="date">
11957         23rd January 2011
11958       </div>
11959       <div class="body">
11960         <p>In the
11961 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
11962 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
11963 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
11964 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
11965 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
11966 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
11967 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
11968 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
11969 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
11970 one of my machines like this:</p>
11971
11972 <pre>
11973 loaded modules:
11974 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
11975 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
11976 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
11977 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
11978 10de:03ec pata_amd
11979 10de:03f6 sata_nv
11980 1022:1103 k8temp
11981 109e:036e bttv
11982 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
11983 11ab:4364 sky2
11984 </pre>
11985
11986 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
11987 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
11988
11989 <pre>
11990 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
11991     echo loaded pci modules:
11992     (
11993         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
11994         for address in * ; do
11995             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11996                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11997                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11998                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11999                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
12000                     echo "$id $module"
12001                 fi
12002             fi
12003         done
12004     )
12005     echo
12006 fi
12007 </pre>
12008
12009 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
12010 mappings:</p>
12011
12012 <pre>
12013 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
12014     echo loaded usb modules:
12015     (
12016         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
12017         for address in * ; do
12018             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12019                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12020                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12021                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12022                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
12023                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
12024                         echo "$id $module"
12025                     fi
12026                 fi
12027             fi
12028         done
12029     )
12030     echo
12031 fi
12032 </pre>
12033
12034 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
12035 well.</p>
12036
12037       </div>
12038       <div class="tags">
12039
12040
12041         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12042
12043
12044       </div>
12045     </div>
12046     <div class="padding"></div>
12047
12048     <div class="entry">
12049       <div class="title">
12050         <a href="https://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>
12051       </div>
12052       <div class="date">
12053         22nd December 2010
12054       </div>
12055       <div class="body">
12056         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
12057 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
12058 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
12059 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
12060 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
12061 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
12062 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
12063 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
12064 university.</p>
12065
12066 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
12067 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
12068 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
12069 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
12070 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
12071 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
12072 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
12073 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
12074
12075 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
12076 I perform on a new model.</p>
12077
12078 <ul>
12079
12080 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
12081 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
12082 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
12083
12084 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
12085 installation, X.org is working.</li>
12086
12087 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
12088 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
12089 reported by the program.</li>
12090
12091 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
12092 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
12093 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
12094 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
12095 normally test this by playing
12096 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
12097 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
12098
12099 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
12100 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12101
12102 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
12103 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12104
12105 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
12106 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
12107
12108 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
12109 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
12110 few.</li>
12111
12112 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
12113 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
12114 notice this.</li>
12115
12116 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
12117 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
12118 resume.</li>
12119
12120 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
12121 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
12122 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
12123 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
12124 not.</li>
12125
12126 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
12127 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
12128 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
12129 existence.</li>
12130
12131 </ul>
12132
12133 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
12134 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
12135 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
12136 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
12137 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
12138 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
12139 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
12140 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
12141
12142       </div>
12143       <div class="tags">
12144
12145
12146         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12147
12148
12149       </div>
12150     </div>
12151     <div class="padding"></div>
12152
12153     <div class="entry">
12154       <div class="title">
12155         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
12156       </div>
12157       <div class="date">
12158         11th December 2010
12159       </div>
12160       <div class="body">
12161         <p>As I continue to explore
12162 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
12163 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
12164 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
12165
12166 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
12167 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
12168 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
12169 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
12170 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
12171 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
12172 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
12173 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
12174 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
12175 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
12176 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
12177 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
12178 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
12179 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
12180 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
12181 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
12182 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
12183 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
12184 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
12185 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
12186
12187 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
12188 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
12189 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
12190 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
12191 If the Skolelinux foundation
12192 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
12193 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
12194 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
12195 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
12196 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
12197 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
12198 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
12199 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
12200
12201 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
12202 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
12203 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
12204 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
12205 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
12206 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
12207 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
12208 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
12209 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
12210 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
12211 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
12212 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
12213 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
12214 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
12215 currencies.</p>
12216
12217 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
12218 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
12219 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
12220 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
12221 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
12222 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
12223 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
12224 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
12225 BitCoins.  Check out
12226 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
12227 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
12228 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
12229 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
12230 yet.</p>
12231
12232 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
12233 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
12234 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
12235 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
12236 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
12237
12238       </div>
12239       <div class="tags">
12240
12241
12242         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12243
12244
12245       </div>
12246     </div>
12247     <div class="padding"></div>
12248
12249     <div class="entry">
12250       <div class="title">
12251         <a href="https://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>
12252       </div>
12253       <div class="date">
12254         10th December 2010
12255       </div>
12256       <div class="body">
12257         <p>With this weeks lawless
12258 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
12259 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
12260 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
12261 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
12262 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
12263 A blog post from
12264 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
12265 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
12266 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
12267 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
12268 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
12269 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
12270 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
12271
12272 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
12273 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
12274 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
12275 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
12276 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
12277 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
12278 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
12279 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
12280 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
12281 Debian</a> soon.</p>
12282
12283 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
12284 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
12285 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
12286 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
12287 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
12288 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
12289 you can even get
12290 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
12291 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
12292 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
12293 on the current exchange rates.</p>
12294
12295 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
12296 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
12297 donations to the address
12298 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
12299
12300       </div>
12301       <div class="tags">
12302
12303
12304         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12305
12306
12307       </div>
12308     </div>
12309     <div class="padding"></div>
12310
12311     <div class="entry">
12312       <div class="title">
12313         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
12314       </div>
12315       <div class="date">
12316         27th November 2010
12317       </div>
12318       <div class="body">
12319         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
12320 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
12321 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
12322 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
12323 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
12324 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
12325 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
12326 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
12327
12328 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
12329 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12330 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
12331 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
12332 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
12333 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
12334 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
12335 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
12336 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
12337 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
12338 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
12339
12340 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
12341 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
12342 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
12343 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
12344 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
12345 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
12346 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
12347 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
12348 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
12349 what is going on.</p>
12350
12351       </div>
12352       <div class="tags">
12353
12354
12355         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
12356
12357
12358       </div>
12359     </div>
12360     <div class="padding"></div>
12361
12362     <div class="entry">
12363       <div class="title">
12364         <a href="https://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>
12365       </div>
12366       <div class="date">
12367         22nd November 2010
12368       </div>
12369       <div class="body">
12370         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
12371 upgrade testing of the
12372 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12373 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
12374 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
12375 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
12376
12377 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12378
12379 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12380
12381 <blockquote><p>
12382   apache2.2-bin
12383   aptdaemon
12384   baobab
12385   binfmt-support
12386   browser-plugin-gnash
12387   cheese-common
12388   cli-common
12389   cups-pk-helper
12390   dmz-cursor-theme
12391   empathy
12392   empathy-common
12393   freedesktop-sound-theme
12394   freeglut3
12395   gconf-defaults-service
12396   gdm-themes
12397   gedit-plugins
12398   geoclue
12399   geoclue-hostip
12400   geoclue-localnet
12401   geoclue-manual
12402   geoclue-yahoo
12403   gnash
12404   gnash-common
12405   gnome
12406   gnome-backgrounds
12407   gnome-cards-data
12408   gnome-codec-install
12409   gnome-core
12410   gnome-desktop-environment
12411   gnome-disk-utility
12412   gnome-screenshot
12413   gnome-search-tool
12414   gnome-session-canberra
12415   gnome-system-log
12416   gnome-themes-extras
12417   gnome-themes-more
12418   gnome-user-share
12419   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12420   gstreamer0.10-tools
12421   gtk2-engines
12422   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12423   gtk2-engines-smooth
12424   hamster-applet
12425   libapache2-mod-dnssd
12426   libapr1
12427   libaprutil1
12428   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
12429   libaprutil1-ldap
12430   libart2.0-cil
12431   libboost-date-time1.42.0
12432   libboost-python1.42.0
12433   libboost-thread1.42.0
12434   libchamplain-0.4-0
12435   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
12436   libcheese-gtk18
12437   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12438   libcryptui0
12439   libdiscid0
12440   libelf1
12441   libepc-1.0-2
12442   libepc-common
12443   libepc-ui-1.0-2
12444   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12445   libfreerdp0
12446   libgconf2.0-cil
12447   libgdata-common
12448   libgdata7
12449   libgdu-gtk0
12450   libgee2
12451   libgeoclue0
12452   libgexiv2-0
12453   libgif4
12454   libglade2.0-cil
12455   libglib2.0-cil
12456   libgmime2.4-cil
12457   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12458   libgnome2.24-cil
12459   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
12460   libgpod-common
12461   libgpod4
12462   libgtk2.0-cil
12463   libgtkglext1
12464   libgtksourceview2.0-common
12465   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12466   libmono-addins0.2-cil
12467   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
12468   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12469   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
12470   libmono-posix2.0-cil
12471   libmono-security2.0-cil
12472   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12473   libmono-system2.0-cil
12474   libmtp8
12475   libmusicbrainz3-6
12476   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
12477   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
12478   libopal3.6.8
12479   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
12480   libpt2.6.7
12481   libpython2.6
12482   librpm1
12483   librpmio1
12484   libsdl1.2debian
12485   libsrtp0
12486   libssh-4
12487   libtelepathy-farsight0
12488   libtelepathy-glib0
12489   libtidy-0.99-0
12490   media-player-info
12491   mesa-utils
12492   mono-2.0-gac
12493   mono-gac
12494   mono-runtime
12495   nautilus-sendto
12496   nautilus-sendto-empathy
12497   p7zip-full
12498   pkg-config
12499   python-aptdaemon
12500   python-aptdaemon-gtk
12501   python-axiom
12502   python-beautifulsoup
12503   python-bugbuddy
12504   python-clientform
12505   python-coherence
12506   python-configobj
12507   python-crypto
12508   python-cupshelpers
12509   python-elementtree
12510   python-epsilon
12511   python-evolution
12512   python-feedparser
12513   python-gdata
12514   python-gdbm
12515   python-gst0.10
12516   python-gtkglext1
12517   python-gtksourceview2
12518   python-httplib2
12519   python-louie
12520   python-mako
12521   python-markupsafe
12522   python-mechanize
12523   python-nevow
12524   python-notify
12525   python-opengl
12526   python-openssl
12527   python-pam
12528   python-pkg-resources
12529   python-pyasn1
12530   python-pysqlite2
12531   python-rdflib
12532   python-serial
12533   python-tagpy
12534   python-twisted-bin
12535   python-twisted-conch
12536   python-twisted-core
12537   python-twisted-web
12538   python-utidylib
12539   python-webkit
12540   python-xdg
12541   python-zope.interface
12542   remmina
12543   remmina-plugin-data
12544   remmina-plugin-rdp
12545   remmina-plugin-vnc
12546   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12547   rhythmbox-plugins
12548   rpm-common
12549   rpm2cpio
12550   seahorse-plugins
12551   shotwell
12552   software-center
12553   system-config-printer-udev
12554   telepathy-gabble
12555   telepathy-mission-control-5
12556   telepathy-salut
12557   tomboy
12558   totem
12559   totem-coherence
12560   totem-mozilla
12561   totem-plugins
12562   transmission-common
12563   xdg-user-dirs
12564   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
12565   xserver-xephyr
12566 </p></blockquote>
12567
12568 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12569
12570 <blockquote><p>
12571   cheese
12572   ekiga
12573   eog
12574   epiphany-extensions
12575   evolution-exchange
12576   fast-user-switch-applet
12577   file-roller
12578   gcalctool
12579   gconf-editor
12580   gdm
12581   gedit
12582   gedit-common
12583   gnome-games
12584   gnome-games-data
12585   gnome-nettool
12586   gnome-system-tools
12587   gnome-themes
12588   gnuchess
12589   gucharmap
12590   guile-1.8-libs
12591   libavahi-ui0
12592   libdmx1
12593   libgalago3
12594   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12595   libgtksourceview2.0-0
12596   liblircclient0
12597   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
12598   libspeexdsp1
12599   libsvga1
12600   rhythmbox
12601   seahorse
12602   sound-juicer
12603   system-config-printer
12604   totem-common
12605   transmission-gtk
12606   vinagre
12607   vino
12608 </p></blockquote>
12609
12610 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12611
12612 <blockquote><p>
12613   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12614 </p></blockquote>
12615
12616 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12617
12618 <blockquote><p>
12619 [nothing]
12620 </p></blockquote>
12621
12622 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12623
12624 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12625
12626 <blockquote><p>
12627   ksmserver
12628 </p></blockquote>
12629
12630 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12631
12632 <blockquote><p>
12633   kwin
12634   network-manager-kde
12635 </p></blockquote>
12636
12637 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12638
12639 <blockquote><p>
12640   arts
12641   dolphin
12642   freespacenotifier
12643   google-gadgets-gst
12644   google-gadgets-xul
12645   kappfinder
12646   kcalc
12647   kcharselect
12648   kde-core
12649   kde-plasma-desktop
12650   kde-standard
12651   kde-window-manager
12652   kdeartwork
12653   kdeartwork-emoticons
12654   kdeartwork-style
12655   kdeartwork-theme-icon
12656   kdebase
12657   kdebase-apps
12658   kdebase-workspace
12659   kdebase-workspace-bin
12660   kdebase-workspace-data
12661   kdeeject
12662   kdelibs
12663   kdeplasma-addons
12664   kdeutils
12665   kdewallpapers
12666   kdf
12667   kfloppy
12668   kgpg
12669   khelpcenter4
12670   kinfocenter
12671   konq-plugins-l10n
12672   konqueror-nsplugins
12673   kscreensaver
12674   kscreensaver-xsavers
12675   ktimer
12676   kwrite
12677   libgle3
12678   libkde4-ruby1.8
12679   libkonq5
12680   libkonq5-templates
12681   libnetpbm10
12682   libplasma-ruby
12683   libplasma-ruby1.8
12684   libqt4-ruby1.8
12685   marble-data
12686   marble-plugins
12687   netpbm
12688   nuvola-icon-theme
12689   plasma-dataengines-workspace
12690   plasma-desktop
12691   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
12692   plasma-runners-addons
12693   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
12694   plasma-scriptengine-python
12695   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
12696   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
12697   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
12698   plasma-scriptengines
12699   plasma-wallpapers-addons
12700   plasma-widget-folderview
12701   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12702   ruby
12703   sweeper
12704   update-notifier-kde
12705   xscreensaver-data-extra
12706   xscreensaver-gl
12707   xscreensaver-gl-extra
12708   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12709 </p></blockquote>
12710
12711 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12712
12713 <blockquote><p>
12714   ark
12715   google-gadgets-common
12716   google-gadgets-qt
12717   htdig
12718   kate
12719   kdebase-bin
12720   kdebase-data
12721   kdepasswd
12722   kfind
12723   klipper
12724   konq-plugins
12725   konqueror
12726   ksysguard
12727   ksysguardd
12728   libarchive1
12729   libcln6
12730   libeet1
12731   libeina-svn-06
12732   libggadget-1.0-0b
12733   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12734   libgps19
12735   libkdecorations4
12736   libkephal4
12737   libkonq4
12738   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12739   libkscreensaver5
12740   libksgrd4
12741   libksignalplotter4
12742   libkunitconversion4
12743   libkwineffects1a
12744   libmarblewidget4
12745   libntrack-qt4-1
12746   libntrack0
12747   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12748   libplasmaclock4a
12749   libplasmagenericshell4
12750   libprocesscore4a
12751   libprocessui4a
12752   libqalculate5
12753   libqedje0a
12754   libqtruby4shared2
12755   libqzion0a
12756   libruby1.8
12757   libscim8c2a
12758   libsmokekdecore4-3
12759   libsmokekdeui4-3
12760   libsmokekfile3
12761   libsmokekhtml3
12762   libsmokekio3
12763   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12764   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12765   libsmokekparts3
12766   libsmokektexteditor3
12767   libsmokekutils3
12768   libsmokenepomuk3
12769   libsmokephonon3
12770   libsmokeplasma3
12771   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12772   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12773   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12774   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12775   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12776   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12777   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12778   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12779   libsmokeqttest4-3
12780   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12781   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12782   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12783   libsmokesolid3
12784   libsmokesoprano3
12785   libtaskmanager4a
12786   libtidy-0.99-0
12787   libweather-ion4a
12788   libxklavier16
12789   libxxf86misc1
12790   okteta
12791   oxygencursors
12792   plasma-dataengines-addons
12793   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12794   plasma-widget-lancelot
12795   plasma-widgets-addons
12796   plasma-widgets-workspace
12797   polkit-kde-1
12798   ruby1.8
12799   systemsettings
12800   update-notifier-common
12801 </p></blockquote>
12802
12803 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12804 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12805 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12806 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12807
12808       </div>
12809       <div class="tags">
12810
12811
12812         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12813
12814
12815       </div>
12816     </div>
12817     <div class="padding"></div>
12818
12819     <div class="entry">
12820       <div class="title">
12821         <a href="https://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>
12822       </div>
12823       <div class="date">
12824         22nd November 2010
12825       </div>
12826       <div class="body">
12827         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12828 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12829 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12830 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12831 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12832 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12833 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12834 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12835 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12836
12837 <p>I found
12838 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12839 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12840 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12841 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12842 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12843 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12844
12845 <pre>
12846 #!/bin/sh
12847
12848 # Based on
12849 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12850
12851 set -e
12852 set -x
12853
12854 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12855     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12856     exit 1
12857 else
12858     host="$1"
12859 fi
12860
12861 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12862     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12863     exit 1
12864 fi
12865
12866 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12867 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12868 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12869 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12870
12871 img=$host.img
12872 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12873 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12874
12875 parted $img mklabel msdos
12876 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12877 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12878 parted $img set 1 boot on
12879
12880 modprobe dm-mod
12881 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12882 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12883
12884 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12885 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12886 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12887
12888 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12889 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12890 </pre>
12891
12892 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12893 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12894
12895 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12896 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12897 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12898 seem to work just fine.</p>
12899
12900       </div>
12901       <div class="tags">
12902
12903
12904         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12905
12906
12907       </div>
12908     </div>
12909     <div class="padding"></div>
12910
12911     <div class="entry">
12912       <div class="title">
12913         <a href="https://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>
12914       </div>
12915       <div class="date">
12916         20th November 2010
12917       </div>
12918       <div class="body">
12919         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12920 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12921 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12922 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12923
12924 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12925 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12926 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12927
12928 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12929
12930 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12931
12932 <blockquote><p>
12933   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12934   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12935   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
12936   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
12937   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
12938   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
12939   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
12940   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
12941   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
12942   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
12943   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12944   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12945   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
12946   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
12947   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
12948   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
12949   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12950   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
12951   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12952   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
12953   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
12954   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12955   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
12956   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
12957   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
12958   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12959   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12960   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
12961   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12962   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
12963   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
12964   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12965   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
12966   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
12967   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
12968   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
12969   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
12970   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
12971   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
12972   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
12973   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
12974   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
12975   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
12976   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
12977   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
12978   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
12979   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
12980   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
12981   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
12982   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
12983   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
12984   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
12985   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12986   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
12987   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
12988   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
12989   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
12990   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
12991   zip
12992 </p></blockquote>
12993
12994 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
12995
12996 <blockquote><p>
12997   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
12998   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
12999   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
13000   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
13001   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
13002   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
13003   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
13004   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
13005   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
13006   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
13007   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
13008   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13009   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13010   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13011   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13012   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
13013   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13014   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
13015   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
13016   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
13017   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
13018   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
13019   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13020   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
13021   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
13022   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
13023   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
13024   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
13025   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
13026 </p></blockquote>
13027
13028 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13029
13030 <blockquote><p>
13031   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13032 </p></blockquote>
13033
13034 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13035
13036 <blockquote><p>
13037 [nothing]
13038 </p></blockquote>
13039
13040 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13041
13042 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13043
13044 <blockquote><p>
13045   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
13046   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13047   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
13048   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
13049   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
13050   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
13051   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13052   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
13053   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
13054   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13055   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
13056   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
13057   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
13058   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
13059   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
13060   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
13061   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
13062   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
13063   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
13064   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
13065   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
13066   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
13067   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
13068   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
13069   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
13070   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
13071   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
13072   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
13073   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
13074   ttf-sazanami-gothic
13075 </p></blockquote>
13076
13077 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13078
13079 <blockquote><p>
13080   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
13081   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
13082   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
13083   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
13084   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
13085   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
13086   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
13087   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
13088   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
13089   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
13090   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
13091   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
13092   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
13093   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
13094   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13095   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13096   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
13097   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
13098   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13099   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
13100   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13101   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
13102   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13103   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13104   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
13105   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
13106   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
13107   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
13108   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
13109   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
13110   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
13111   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
13112   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
13113 </p></blockquote>
13114
13115 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13116
13117 <blockquote><p>
13118   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
13119   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
13120   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
13121   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
13122   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13123   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
13124   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13125 </p></blockquote>
13126
13127 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13128
13129 <blockquote><p>
13130   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
13131 </p></blockquote>
13132
13133       </div>
13134       <div class="tags">
13135
13136
13137         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13138
13139
13140       </div>
13141     </div>
13142     <div class="padding"></div>
13143
13144     <div class="entry">
13145       <div class="title">
13146         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
13147       </div>
13148       <div class="date">
13149         20th November 2010
13150       </div>
13151       <div class="body">
13152         <p>Answering
13153 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
13154 call from the Gnash project</a> for
13155 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
13156 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
13157 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
13158 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
13159 releases out more often.</p>
13160
13161 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
13162 I have considered setting up a <a
13163 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
13164 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
13165 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
13166 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
13167 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
13168 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
13169 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
13170 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
13171 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
13172 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
13173 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
13174 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
13175
13176       </div>
13177       <div class="tags">
13178
13179
13180         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13181
13182
13183       </div>
13184     </div>
13185     <div class="padding"></div>
13186
13187     <div class="entry">
13188       <div class="title">
13189         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
13190       </div>
13191       <div class="date">
13192          9th November 2010
13193       </div>
13194       <div class="body">
13195         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
13196
13197 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
13198 3D linked in from
13199 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
13200 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
13201
13202       </div>
13203       <div class="tags">
13204
13205
13206         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13207
13208
13209       </div>
13210     </div>
13211     <div class="padding"></div>
13212
13213     <div class="entry">
13214       <div class="title">
13215         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
13216       </div>
13217       <div class="date">
13218         24th October 2010
13219       </div>
13220       <div class="body">
13221         <p>Some updates.</p>
13222
13223 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
13224 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
13225 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
13226 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
13227 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
13228 :)</p>
13229
13230 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
13231 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
13232 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
13233 It is called
13234 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
13235 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
13236 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
13237 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
13238 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
13239 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
13240
13241 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
13242 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
13243 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
13244 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
13245 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
13246 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
13247 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
13248 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
13249 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
13250 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
13251
13252       </div>
13253       <div class="tags">
13254
13255
13256         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
13257
13258
13259       </div>
13260     </div>
13261     <div class="padding"></div>
13262
13263     <div class="entry">
13264       <div class="title">
13265         <a href="https://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>
13266       </div>
13267       <div class="date">
13268          4th September 2010
13269       </div>
13270       <div class="body">
13271         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
13272 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
13273 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
13274 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
13275 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
13276 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
13277 installed.</p>
13278
13279 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
13280 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
13281 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
13282 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
13283 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13284 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
13285 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
13286 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
13287 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
13288
13289 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
13290 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
13291 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
13292 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
13293 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
13294 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
13295 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
13296 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
13297 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
13298 pages they want to visit.</p>
13299
13300 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
13301 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
13302 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
13303 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
13304 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
13305 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
13306 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
13307 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
13308 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
13309 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
13310 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
13311
13312       </div>
13313       <div class="tags">
13314
13315
13316         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
13317
13318
13319       </div>
13320     </div>
13321     <div class="padding"></div>
13322
13323     <div class="entry">
13324       <div class="title">
13325         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
13326       </div>
13327       <div class="date">
13328         27th July 2010
13329       </div>
13330       <div class="body">
13331         <p>I discovered this while doing
13332 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
13333 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
13334 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
13335 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
13336 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
13337
13338 <p>An example is from todays
13339 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
13340 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
13341 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
13342 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
13343 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
13344 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
13345 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
13346
13347 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
13348
13349 <blockquote><pre>
13350 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
13351  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
13352   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
13353 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
13354  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
13355 </pre></blockquote>
13356
13357 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
13358 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
13359 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
13360 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
13361 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
13362 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
13363 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
13364 of dependency loops.</p>
13365
13366 <p>Thanks to
13367 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
13368 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
13369 dependencies
13370 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
13371 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
13372
13373 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
13374 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
13375 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
13376 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
13377 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
13378 it.</p>
13379
13380       </div>
13381       <div class="tags">
13382
13383
13384         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13385
13386
13387       </div>
13388     </div>
13389     <div class="padding"></div>
13390
13391     <div class="entry">
13392       <div class="title">
13393         <a href="https://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>
13394       </div>
13395       <div class="date">
13396         17th July 2010
13397       </div>
13398       <div class="body">
13399         <p>This is a
13400 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
13401 on my
13402 <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
13403 work</a> on
13404 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
13405 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
13406
13407 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
13408 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
13409 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
13410 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
13411
13412 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
13413 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
13414 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
13415
13416 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
13417
13418 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
13419 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
13420 the web.
13421
13422 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
13423 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
13424 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
13425 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
13426 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
13427 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
13428
13429 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
13430 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
13431 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
13432 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
13433 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
13434 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
13435 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
13436 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
13437 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
13438 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
13439 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
13440 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
13441 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
13442 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
13443 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
13444 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
13445
13446 <blockquote><pre>
13447 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13448   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13449   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13450   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13451   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13452   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13453   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13454
13455 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13456   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13457   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
13458   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
13459   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
13460   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
13461 </pre></blockquote>
13462
13463 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
13464 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
13465 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
13466 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13467 also exist.</p>
13468
13469 <blockquote><pre>
13470 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13471 objectclass: top
13472 objectclass: dnsdomain
13473 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13474 dc: tjener
13475 arecord: 10.0.2.2
13476 associateddomain: tjener.intern
13477
13478 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13479 objectclass: top
13480 objectclass: dnsdomain2
13481 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13482 dc: 2
13483 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
13484 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
13485 </pre></blockquote>
13486
13487 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
13488 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
13489 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
13490 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
13491 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
13492 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
13493 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
13494 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
13495 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
13496 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
13497 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
13498 instead.</p>
13499
13500 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
13501 like this:</p>
13502
13503 <blockquote><pre>
13504 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13505   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13506   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13507   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13508   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13509   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13510
13511 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13512   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
13513 </pre></blockquote>
13514
13515 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
13516 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
13517 reverse lookups.</p>
13518
13519 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
13520 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
13521 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
13522 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
13523
13524 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
13525 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
13526 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
13527
13528 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
13529 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
13530 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
13531 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
13532 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
13533
13534 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
13535 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
13536 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
13537 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
13538 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
13539
13540 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
13541 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
13542 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
13543 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
13544 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
13545 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
13546
13547 <blockquote><pre>
13548 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
13549     SUP top
13550     AUXILIARY
13551     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
13552           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
13553           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
13554           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
13555           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
13556     ))
13557 </pre></blockquote>
13558
13559 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
13560 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
13561 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
13562 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
13563 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
13564 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
13565
13566 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
13567
13568 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
13569 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
13570 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
13571 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
13572 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
13573
13574 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
13575 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
13576 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
13577 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
13578
13579 <blockquote><pre>
13580 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
13581 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
13582 </pre></blockquote>
13583
13584 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
13585 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
13586 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
13587 search result is this entry:</p>
13588
13589 <blockquote><pre>
13590 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13591 cn: dhcp
13592 objectClass: top
13593 objectClass: dhcpServer
13594 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13595 </pre></blockquote>
13596
13597 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
13598 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
13599 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
13600 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
13601 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
13602 The search result is this entry:</p>
13603
13604 <blockquote><pre>
13605 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13606 cn: DHCP Config
13607 objectClass: top
13608 objectClass: dhcpService
13609 objectClass: dhcpOptions
13610 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13611 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
13612 dhcpStatements: authoritative
13613 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
13614 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
13615 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
13616 </pre></blockquote>
13617
13618 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
13619 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
13620 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
13621 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
13622 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
13623 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
13624 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
13625 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
13626 related computer objects.</p>
13627
13628 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
13629 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
13630 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
13631 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
13632 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
13633 like:</p>
13634
13635 <blockquote><pre>
13636 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13637 cn: hostname
13638 objectClass: top
13639 objectClass: dhcpHost
13640 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13641 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
13642 </pre></blockquote>
13643
13644 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
13645 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
13646 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
13647 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
13648 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
13649 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
13650 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
13651 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
13652 structural object class.
13653
13654 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
13655
13656 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
13657 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
13658 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
13659 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
13660 in the configuration.</p>
13661
13662 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
13663 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
13664 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
13665 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
13666 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
13667 structure.</p>
13668
13669 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
13670 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
13671
13672 <blockquote><pre>
13673 ou=services
13674   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
13675     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
13676     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13677       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13678         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13679     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13680       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13681         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13682     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
13683       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
13684 </pre></blockquote>
13685
13686 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
13687 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
13688 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
13689 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
13690
13691 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
13692 like this:</p>
13693
13694 <blockquote><pre>
13695 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13696 dc: hostname
13697 objectClass: top
13698 objectClass: dhcpHost
13699 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13700 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
13701 associateddomain: hostname.intern
13702 arecord: 10.11.12.13
13703 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13704 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
13705 </pre></blockquote>
13706
13707 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
13708 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
13709 auxiliary object class.</p>
13710
13711       </div>
13712       <div class="tags">
13713
13714
13715         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13716
13717
13718       </div>
13719     </div>
13720     <div class="padding"></div>
13721
13722     <div class="entry">
13723       <div class="title">
13724         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
13725       </div>
13726       <div class="date">
13727         14th July 2010
13728       </div>
13729       <div class="body">
13730         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
13731 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
13732 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
13733 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
13734 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
13735
13736 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
13737 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
13738
13739 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
13740 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
13741 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
13742 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
13743 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
13744 to a slave DNS server.</p>
13745
13746 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
13747 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
13748 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
13749 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
13750 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
13751 seem to work.</p>
13752
13753 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
13754 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
13755 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
13756 this:</p>
13757
13758 <blockquote><pre>
13759   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13760   cn: hostname
13761   objectClass: dhcphost
13762   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13763   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
13764   associateddomain: hostname.intern
13765   arecord: 10.11.12.13
13766   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13767   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
13768   ldapconfigsound: Y
13769 </pre></blockquote>
13770
13771 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
13772 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
13773 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
13774 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
13775
13776 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
13777 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
13778 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
13779 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
13780 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
13781 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
13782 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
13783 might be a good place to put it.</p>
13784
13785 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13786 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13787
13788       </div>
13789       <div class="tags">
13790
13791
13792         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13793
13794
13795       </div>
13796     </div>
13797     <div class="padding"></div>
13798
13799     <div class="entry">
13800       <div class="title">
13801         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
13802       </div>
13803       <div class="date">
13804         11th July 2010
13805       </div>
13806       <div class="body">
13807         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
13808 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
13809 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
13810 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
13811
13812 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
13813 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
13814 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
13815 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
13816 LTSP clients.</p>
13817
13818 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
13819 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
13820 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
13821
13822 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
13823 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
13824 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
13825
13826 <blockquote><pre>
13827 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
13828 #
13829 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
13830 #
13831 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
13832 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
13833 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
13834 #
13835 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
13836 # existence of attribute names.
13837 #
13838 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
13839 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
13840 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
13841 #
13842 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
13843 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
13844 #
13845 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
13846 #     SUP top
13847 #     AUXILIARY
13848 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
13849
13850 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
13851 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
13852     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
13853     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
13854         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
13855         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
13856             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
13857             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
13858             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
13859             # bass value on to clients
13860             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
13861         done
13862     done
13863 fi
13864 </pre></blockquote>
13865
13866 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
13867 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
13868 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
13869 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
13870 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
13871
13872 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13873 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13874
13875 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
13876 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
13877 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
13878 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
13879 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
13880 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
13881
13882       </div>
13883       <div class="tags">
13884
13885
13886         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13887
13888
13889       </div>
13890     </div>
13891     <div class="padding"></div>
13892
13893     <div class="entry">
13894       <div class="title">
13895         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13896       </div>
13897       <div class="date">
13898          9th July 2010
13899       </div>
13900       <div class="body">
13901         <p>Since
13902 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
13903 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
13904 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
13905 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
13906 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
13907 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
13908 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
13909 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
13910 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
13911 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
13912 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
13913 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
13914 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
13915
13916       </div>
13917       <div class="tags">
13918
13919
13920         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13921
13922
13923       </div>
13924     </div>
13925     <div class="padding"></div>
13926
13927     <div class="entry">
13928       <div class="title">
13929         <a href="https://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>
13930       </div>
13931       <div class="date">
13932          3rd July 2010
13933       </div>
13934       <div class="body">
13935         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
13936 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
13937 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
13938 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
13939 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
13940 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
13941 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
13942 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
13943
13944 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
13945 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
13946 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
13947 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
13948 publish the difference.</p>
13949
13950 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13951
13952 <blockquote><p>
13953   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13954   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
13955   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
13956   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13957   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
13958   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
13959   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
13960   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
13961 </p></blockquote>
13962
13963 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13964
13965 <blockquote><p>
13966   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
13967   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
13968   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
13969   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
13970   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
13971   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
13972   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13973   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13974   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13975   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
13976   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
13977   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
13978   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
13979   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
13980   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
13981   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13982   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
13983   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
13984   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
13985   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
13986 </p></blockquote>
13987
13988 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13989
13990 <blockquote><p>
13991   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
13992   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
13993   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13994   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13995   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
13996   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
13997   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
13998   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13999   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14000   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14001   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14002   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
14003   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
14004   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
14005   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
14006   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
14007   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
14008   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
14009   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
14010   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
14011   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
14012 </p></blockquote>
14013
14014 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14015
14016 <blockquote><p>
14017   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
14018   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
14019   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
14020 </p></blockquote>
14021
14022 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
14023 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
14024 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
14025 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
14026 the difference somewhat.
14027
14028       </div>
14029       <div class="tags">
14030
14031
14032         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14033
14034
14035       </div>
14036     </div>
14037     <div class="padding"></div>
14038
14039     <div class="entry">
14040       <div class="title">
14041         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14042       </div>
14043       <div class="date">
14044         28th June 2010
14045       </div>
14046       <div class="body">
14047         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
14048 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
14049 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
14050 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
14051 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
14052 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
14053 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
14054 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
14055 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
14056 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
14057
14058 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
14059 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
14060 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
14061 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
14062 released.</p>
14063
14064 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
14065 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
14066 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
14067 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
14068
14069 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
14070 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14071
14072 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
14073 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
14074 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
14075 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
14076 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
14077
14078       </div>
14079       <div class="tags">
14080
14081
14082         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14083
14084
14085       </div>
14086     </div>
14087     <div class="padding"></div>
14088
14089     <div class="entry">
14090       <div class="title">
14091         <a href="https://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>
14092       </div>
14093       <div class="date">
14094         24th June 2010
14095       </div>
14096       <div class="body">
14097         <p>A while back, I
14098 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
14099 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
14100 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
14101 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
14102
14103 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
14104 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
14105 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
14106 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
14107
14108 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
14109 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
14110 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
14111 Debian Edu.</p>
14112
14113 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
14114 the
14115 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
14116 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
14117 available today from IETF.</p>
14118
14119 <pre>
14120 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
14121 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
14122 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
14123  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
14124         NAME 'dhcpHost'
14125         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
14126 -       SUP top
14127 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
14128         MUST cn
14129         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
14130         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
14131 </pre>
14132
14133 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
14134 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
14135 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
14136
14137 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14138 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14139
14140       </div>
14141       <div class="tags">
14142
14143
14144         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14145
14146
14147       </div>
14148     </div>
14149     <div class="padding"></div>
14150
14151     <div class="entry">
14152       <div class="title">
14153         <a href="https://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>
14154       </div>
14155       <div class="date">
14156         16th June 2010
14157       </div>
14158       <div class="body">
14159         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
14160 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
14161 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
14162 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
14163 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
14164 this:
14165
14166 <blockquote><pre>
14167 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14168 tasksel --new-install
14169 </pre></blockquote>
14170
14171 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
14172 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
14173 any output what so ever.
14174
14175 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
14176 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
14177 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
14178 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
14179 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
14180 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
14181 code like this:
14182
14183 <blockquote><pre>
14184 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14185 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
14186 $cmd
14187 </pre></blockquote>
14188
14189 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
14190 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
14191 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
14192 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
14193 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
14194 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
14195 installation.</p>
14196
14197 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
14198 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
14199 like this.</p>
14200
14201       </div>
14202       <div class="tags">
14203
14204
14205         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14206
14207
14208       </div>
14209     </div>
14210     <div class="padding"></div>
14211
14212     <div class="entry">
14213       <div class="title">
14214         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
14215       </div>
14216       <div class="date">
14217         13th June 2010
14218       </div>
14219       <div class="body">
14220         <p>My
14221 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
14222 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
14223 finally made the upgrade logs available from
14224 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
14225 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
14226 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
14227 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
14228
14229 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
14230 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
14231 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
14232 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
14233 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
14234 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
14235 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
14236 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
14237
14238 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
14239 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
14240 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
14241 too surprising.</p>
14242
14243 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
14244 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
14245 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
14246 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
14247 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
14248 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
14249 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
14250 continue.</p>
14251
14252 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
14253 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
14254   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
14255   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
14256   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
14257   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
14258   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
14259   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14260   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14261   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14262   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14263   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14264   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14265   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14266   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14267   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14268   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14269   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14270   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14271   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14272   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14273   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14274   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14275   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14276   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14277   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14278   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14279   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14280   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
14281   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
14282
14283 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
14284
14285 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
14286   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
14287   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
14288   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
14289   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14290   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
14291   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
14292   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
14293   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
14294   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
14295   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14296   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
14297   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14298   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
14299   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
14300   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
14301   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
14302   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
14303   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
14304   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
14305   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
14306   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
14307   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
14308   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
14309   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14310   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
14311   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
14312   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
14313   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
14314   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14315   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14316   zip</p>
14317
14318 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
14319
14320 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
14321   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
14322   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
14323   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
14324   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
14325   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
14326   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14327   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14328   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14329   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14330   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14331   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14332   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14333   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14334   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14335   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14336   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14337   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14338   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14339   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14340   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14341   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14342   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14343   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14344   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14345   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14346   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14347   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
14348
14349 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
14350 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
14351   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
14352   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
14353   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
14354   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
14355   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
14356   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
14357   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
14358   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
14359   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
14360   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
14361   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
14362   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
14363   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
14364   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
14365   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
14366   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
14367   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
14368   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14369   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
14370   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
14371   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
14372   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
14373   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
14374   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
14375   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
14376   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
14377   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
14378   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
14379   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
14380   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
14381   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
14382   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
14383   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
14384   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14385   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14386   xulrunner-1.9</p>
14387
14388
14389       </div>
14390       <div class="tags">
14391
14392
14393         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14394
14395
14396       </div>
14397     </div>
14398     <div class="padding"></div>
14399
14400     <div class="entry">
14401       <div class="title">
14402         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
14403       </div>
14404       <div class="date">
14405         11th June 2010
14406       </div>
14407       <div class="body">
14408         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
14409 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
14410 have been discovered and reported in the process
14411 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
14412 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
14413 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
14414 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
14415 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
14416
14417 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
14418 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
14419 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
14420 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
14421 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
14422 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
14423
14424 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
14425 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
14426 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14427 is created.  The bug report
14428 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
14429 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
14430 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
14431 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
14432 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
14433 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
14434 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
14435 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
14436 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
14437 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
14438 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
14439 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
14440 Debian Squeeze.</p>
14441
14442 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
14443 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
14444 trick:</p>
14445
14446 <blockquote><pre>
14447 #!/bin/sh
14448 set -ex
14449
14450 if [ "$1" ] ; then
14451     desktop=$1
14452 else
14453     desktop=gnome
14454 fi
14455
14456 from=lenny
14457 to=squeeze
14458
14459 exec &lt; /dev/null
14460 unset LANG
14461 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
14462 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
14463 fuser -mv .
14464 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
14465 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14466 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
14467 #!/bin/sh
14468 exit 101
14469 EOF
14470 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
14471 exit_cleanup() {
14472     umount $tmpdir/proc
14473 }
14474 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
14475 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
14476 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
14477
14478 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
14479
14480 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
14481 # to return the correct answers.
14482 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
14483     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
14484
14485 # Include the desktop and laptop task
14486 for test in desktop laptop ; do
14487     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
14488 #!/bin/sh
14489 exit 2
14490 EOF
14491     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
14492 done
14493
14494 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14495 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
14496 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
14497 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
14498
14499 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
14500 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14501 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14502 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
14503 fuser -mv
14504 </pre></blockquote>
14505
14506 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
14507 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
14508 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
14509 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
14510 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
14511 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
14512
14513 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
14514 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
14515 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
14516 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
14517 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
14518 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
14519 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
14520
14521 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
14522 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
14523 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
14524 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
14525 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
14526 packages.</p>
14527
14528       </div>
14529       <div class="tags">
14530
14531
14532         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14533
14534
14535       </div>
14536     </div>
14537     <div class="padding"></div>
14538
14539     <div class="entry">
14540       <div class="title">
14541         <a href="https://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>
14542       </div>
14543       <div class="date">
14544          6th June 2010
14545       </div>
14546       <div class="body">
14547         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
14548 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
14549 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
14550 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
14551 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
14552 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
14553 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
14554
14555 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
14556 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
14557 COLUMNS):</p>
14558
14559 <blockquote><pre>
14560 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
14561 previous=N
14562 PREVLEVEL=
14563 RUNLEVEL=
14564 runlevel=S
14565 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
14566 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
14567 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
14568 </pre></blockquote>
14569
14570 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
14571 script.</p>
14572
14573 <blockquote><pre>
14574 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
14575 previous=N
14576 PREVLEVEL=N
14577 RUNLEVEL=S
14578 runlevel=S
14579 </pre></blockquote>
14580
14581 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
14582 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
14583 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
14584
14585 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
14586 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
14587 choice.</p>
14588
14589       </div>
14590       <div class="tags">
14591
14592
14593         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14594
14595
14596       </div>
14597     </div>
14598     <div class="padding"></div>
14599
14600     <div class="entry">
14601       <div class="title">
14602         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
14603       </div>
14604       <div class="date">
14605          6th June 2010
14606       </div>
14607       <div class="body">
14608         <p>Via the
14609 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
14610 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
14611 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
14612 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
14613 following the standards wars of today.</p>
14614
14615       </div>
14616       <div class="tags">
14617
14618
14619         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
14620
14621
14622       </div>
14623     </div>
14624     <div class="padding"></div>
14625
14626     <div class="entry">
14627       <div class="title">
14628         <a href="https://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>
14629       </div>
14630       <div class="date">
14631          3rd June 2010
14632       </div>
14633       <div class="body">
14634         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
14635 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
14636 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
14637 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
14638 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
14639
14640 <blockquote><pre>
14641 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
14642   vendor                    count
14643   Dell Computer Corporation     1
14644     PowerEdge 1750              1
14645   IBM                           1
14646     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
14647   Intel                         2
14648   [no-dmi-info]                 3
14649 maintainer:~#
14650 </pre></blockquote>
14651
14652 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
14653 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
14654 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
14655 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
14656 option to list the individual machines.</p>
14657
14658 <p>A larger list is
14659 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
14660 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
14661 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
14662 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
14663 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
14664 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
14665 collector.</p>
14666
14667       </div>
14668       <div class="tags">
14669
14670
14671         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14672
14673
14674       </div>
14675     </div>
14676     <div class="padding"></div>
14677
14678     <div class="entry">
14679       <div class="title">
14680         <a href="https://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>
14681       </div>
14682       <div class="date">
14683          1st June 2010
14684       </div>
14685       <div class="body">
14686         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
14687 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
14688 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
14689 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
14690 wait.</p>
14691
14692 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
14693 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
14694 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
14695 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
14696 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
14697 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
14698
14699 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
14700 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
14701 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
14702 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
14703 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
14704 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
14705 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
14706 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
14707
14708 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
14709
14710       </div>
14711       <div class="tags">
14712
14713
14714         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14715
14716
14717       </div>
14718     </div>
14719     <div class="padding"></div>
14720
14721     <div class="entry">
14722       <div class="title">
14723         <a href="https://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>
14724       </div>
14725       <div class="date">
14726         27th May 2010
14727       </div>
14728       <div class="body">
14729         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
14730 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
14731 issues are known and should be solved:
14732
14733 <p><ul>
14734
14735 <li>The wicd package seen to
14736 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
14737 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
14738 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
14739 seem to be on the case.</li>
14740
14741 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
14742 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
14743 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
14744 maintainer is on the case.</li>
14745
14746 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
14747 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
14748 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
14749 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
14750 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
14751 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
14752 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
14753 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
14754
14755 </ul></p>
14756
14757 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
14758 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
14759 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
14760 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
14761
14762 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14763 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14764 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14765 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14766
14767 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
14768
14769       </div>
14770       <div class="tags">
14771
14772
14773         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14774
14775
14776       </div>
14777     </div>
14778     <div class="padding"></div>
14779
14780     <div class="entry">
14781       <div class="title">
14782         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
14783       </div>
14784       <div class="date">
14785         22nd May 2010
14786       </div>
14787       <div class="body">
14788         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
14789 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
14790 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
14791 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
14792
14793 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
14794 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
14795 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
14796 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
14797 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
14798 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
14799 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
14800 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
14801 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
14802 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
14803 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
14804 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
14805 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
14806 going to work.</p>
14807
14808 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
14809 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
14810 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
14811 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
14812 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
14813 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
14814 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
14815 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
14816 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
14817 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
14818 Edu.</p>
14819
14820 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
14821 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
14822 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
14823 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
14824 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
14825 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
14826
14827 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
14828 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
14829
14830       </div>
14831       <div class="tags">
14832
14833
14834         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14835
14836
14837       </div>
14838     </div>
14839     <div class="padding"></div>
14840
14841     <div class="entry">
14842       <div class="title">
14843         <a href="https://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>
14844       </div>
14845       <div class="date">
14846         14th May 2010
14847       </div>
14848       <div class="body">
14849         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
14850 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
14851 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
14852 expected, if I am to believe the
14853 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14854 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
14855 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
14856 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
14857 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
14858 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
14859 version.</p>
14860
14861 More information about
14862 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14863 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
14864 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
14865 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14866
14867 <blockquote><pre>
14868 CONCURRENCY=none
14869 </pre></blockquote>
14870
14871 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14872 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14873 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14874 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14875
14876       </div>
14877       <div class="tags">
14878
14879
14880         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14881
14882
14883       </div>
14884     </div>
14885     <div class="padding"></div>
14886
14887     <div class="entry">
14888       <div class="title">
14889         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
14890       </div>
14891       <div class="date">
14892         14th May 2010
14893       </div>
14894       <div class="body">
14895         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
14896 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
14897 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
14898 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
14899 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
14900 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
14901 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
14902 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
14903
14904 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
14905 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
14906 this on the collector host:</p>
14907
14908 <blockquote><pre>
14909 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
14910 </pre></blockquote>
14911
14912 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
14913 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
14914
14915 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
14916 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
14917 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
14918 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
14919 written yet.</p>
14920
14921       </div>
14922       <div class="tags">
14923
14924
14925         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14926
14927
14928       </div>
14929     </div>
14930     <div class="padding"></div>
14931
14932     <div class="entry">
14933       <div class="title">
14934         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
14935       </div>
14936       <div class="date">
14937         13th May 2010
14938       </div>
14939       <div class="body">
14940         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
14941 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
14942 has been
14943 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
14944
14945 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
14946 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
14947 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
14948 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
14949 based boot system.  Tollef is
14950 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
14951 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
14952 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
14953 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
14954 at the moment do not.</p>
14955
14956 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
14957 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
14958 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
14959 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
14960 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
14961 way forward.</p>
14962
14963 <p>In the mean time, based on the
14964 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14965 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
14966 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
14967 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
14968 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
14969 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
14970 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
14971 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
14972
14973       </div>
14974       <div class="tags">
14975
14976
14977         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14978
14979
14980       </div>
14981     </div>
14982     <div class="padding"></div>
14983
14984     <div class="entry">
14985       <div class="title">
14986         <a href="https://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>
14987       </div>
14988       <div class="date">
14989          6th May 2010
14990       </div>
14991       <div class="body">
14992         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
14993 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
14994 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
14995 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
14996 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14997 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
14998 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14999
15000 <blockquote><pre>
15001 CONCURRENCY=makefile
15002 </pre></blockquote>
15003
15004 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
15005 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
15006 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
15007 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
15008 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
15009 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
15010 make this happen.</p>
15011
15012 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
15013 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
15014 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
15015 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
15016 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
15017
15018 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
15019 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
15020 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
15021 fix the remaining issues.</p>
15022
15023 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15024 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15025 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15026 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15027
15028       </div>
15029       <div class="tags">
15030
15031
15032         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15033
15034
15035       </div>
15036     </div>
15037     <div class="padding"></div>
15038
15039     <div class="entry">
15040       <div class="title">
15041         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
15042       </div>
15043       <div class="date">
15044         27th July 2009
15045       </div>
15046       <div class="body">
15047         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
15048 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
15049 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
15050 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
15051 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
15052 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
15053 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
15054
15055 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
15056 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
15057 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
15058
15059       </div>
15060       <div class="tags">
15061
15062
15063         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15064
15065
15066       </div>
15067     </div>
15068     <div class="padding"></div>
15069
15070     <div class="entry">
15071       <div class="title">
15072         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
15073       </div>
15074       <div class="date">
15075         22nd July 2009
15076       </div>
15077       <div class="body">
15078         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
15079 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
15080 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
15081 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
15082 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
15083 the package up to date.</p>
15084
15085 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
15086 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
15087 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
15088 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
15089 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
15090 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
15091 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
15092 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
15093 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
15094 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
15095 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
15096 working on the future release.</p>
15097
15098 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
15099 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
15100
15101       </div>
15102       <div class="tags">
15103
15104
15105         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15106
15107
15108       </div>
15109     </div>
15110     <div class="padding"></div>
15111
15112     <div class="entry">
15113       <div class="title">
15114         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
15115       </div>
15116       <div class="date">
15117         24th June 2009
15118       </div>
15119       <div class="body">
15120         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
15121 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
15122 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
15123 funded
15124 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
15125 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
15126 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
15127 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
15128 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
15129 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
15130
15131 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
15132 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
15133 boot:</p>
15134
15135 <ul>
15136
15137 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
15138
15139 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
15140    clock is in UTC.</li>
15141
15142 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
15143    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15144    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
15145
15146 </ul>
15147
15148 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
15149 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
15150 Villegas</a>.
15151
15152 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
15153 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
15154 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
15155 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
15156 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
15157 using this.</p>
15158
15159 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
15160 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
15161 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
15162 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
15163 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
15164 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
15165 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
15166
15167       </div>
15168       <div class="tags">
15169
15170
15171         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15172
15173
15174       </div>
15175     </div>
15176     <div class="padding"></div>
15177
15178     <div class="entry">
15179       <div class="title">
15180         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
15181       </div>
15182       <div class="date">
15183         17th May 2009
15184       </div>
15185       <div class="body">
15186         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
15187 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
15188 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
15189 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
15190 dager siden kom
15191 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
15192 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
15193 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
15194 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
15195 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
15196
15197 <blockquote>
15198 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
15199 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
15200 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
15201 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
15202 </blockquote>
15203
15204 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
15205 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
15206 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
15207 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
15208 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
15209
15210 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
15211 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
15212 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
15213
15214       </div>
15215       <div class="tags">
15216
15217
15218         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
15219
15220
15221       </div>
15222     </div>
15223     <div class="padding"></div>
15224
15225     <div class="entry">
15226       <div class="title">
15227         <a href="https://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>
15228       </div>
15229       <div class="date">
15230          7th May 2009
15231       </div>
15232       <div class="body">
15233         <p>Kom over
15234 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
15235 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
15236 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
15237 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
15238 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
15239 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
15240 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
15241
15242       </div>
15243       <div class="tags">
15244
15245
15246         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15247
15248
15249       </div>
15250     </div>
15251     <div class="padding"></div>
15252
15253     <div class="entry">
15254       <div class="title">
15255         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
15256       </div>
15257       <div class="date">
15258          2nd May 2009
15259       </div>
15260       <div class="body">
15261         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
15262 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
15263 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
15264 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
15265 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
15266 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
15267 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
15268 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
15269 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
15270 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
15271 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
15272 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
15273 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
15274 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
15275 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
15276 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
15277 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
15278 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
15279 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
15280 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
15281
15282 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
15283 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
15284 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
15285 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
15286 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
15287 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
15288 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
15289 betydelige.</p>
15290
15291       </div>
15292       <div class="tags">
15293
15294
15295         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
15296
15297
15298       </div>
15299     </div>
15300     <div class="padding"></div>
15301
15302     <div class="entry">
15303       <div class="title">
15304         <a href="https://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>
15305       </div>
15306       <div class="date">
15307          2nd May 2009
15308       </div>
15309       <div class="body">
15310         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
15311 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
15312 do not yet know them.</p>
15313
15314 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
15315 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
15316 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
15317 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
15318 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
15319 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
15320 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
15321 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
15322 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
15323 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
15324 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
15325
15326 <p>The second one is
15327 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
15328 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
15329 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
15330 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
15331 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
15332 and the company behind it is running
15333 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
15334 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
15335 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
15336 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
15337 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
15338 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
15339 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
15340 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
15341
15342 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
15343 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
15344 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
15345 surrounded by today.</p>
15346
15347       </div>
15348       <div class="tags">
15349
15350
15351         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15352
15353
15354       </div>
15355     </div>
15356     <div class="padding"></div>
15357
15358     <div class="entry">
15359       <div class="title">
15360         <a href="https://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>
15361       </div>
15362       <div class="date">
15363         28th April 2009
15364       </div>
15365       <div class="body">
15366         <p>Julien Blache
15367 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
15368 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
15369 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
15370 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
15371 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
15372 properties.</p>
15373
15374       </div>
15375       <div class="tags">
15376
15377
15378         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15379
15380
15381       </div>
15382     </div>
15383     <div class="padding"></div>
15384
15385     <div class="entry">
15386       <div class="title">
15387         <a href="https://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>
15388       </div>
15389       <div class="date">
15390         30th March 2009
15391       </div>
15392       <div class="body">
15393         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
15394 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
15395 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
15396 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
15397 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
15398 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
15399 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
15400 application.</p>
15401
15402 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
15403 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
15404 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
15405 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
15406 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
15407 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
15408 blocked from doing so.</p>
15409
15410 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
15411 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
15412 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
15413 requirements change.</p>
15414
15415 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
15416 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
15417 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
15418
15419       </div>
15420       <div class="tags">
15421
15422
15423         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
15424
15425
15426       </div>
15427     </div>
15428     <div class="padding"></div>
15429
15430     <div class="entry">
15431       <div class="title">
15432         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
15433       </div>
15434       <div class="date">
15435         29th March 2009
15436       </div>
15437       <div class="body">
15438         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
15439 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
15440 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
15441 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
15442 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
15443 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
15444 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
15445 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
15446 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
15447 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
15448 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
15449 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
15450 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
15451 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
15452 now. :)</p>
15453
15454       </div>
15455       <div class="tags">
15456
15457
15458         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15459
15460
15461       </div>
15462     </div>
15463     <div class="padding"></div>
15464
15465     <div class="entry">
15466       <div class="title">
15467         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
15468       </div>
15469       <div class="date">
15470         29th March 2009
15471       </div>
15472       <div class="body">
15473         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
15474 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
15475 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
15476 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
15477 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
15478 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
15479
15480 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
15481 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
15482 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
15483 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
15484 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
15485 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
15486 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
15487 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
15488 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
15489 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
15490 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
15491 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
15492 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
15493
15494 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
15495 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
15496 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
15497 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
15498
15499 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
15500 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
15501
15502 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
15503 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
15504 new IETF work group?</p>
15505
15506       </div>
15507       <div class="tags">
15508
15509
15510         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15511
15512
15513       </div>
15514     </div>
15515     <div class="padding"></div>
15516
15517     <div class="entry">
15518       <div class="title">
15519         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
15520       </div>
15521       <div class="date">
15522         15th February 2009
15523       </div>
15524       <div class="body">
15525         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
15526 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
15527 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
15528 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
15529 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
15530 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
15531 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
15532 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
15533 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
15534 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
15535 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
15536 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
15537
15538       </div>
15539       <div class="tags">
15540
15541
15542         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
15543
15544
15545       </div>
15546     </div>
15547     <div class="padding"></div>
15548
15549     <div class="entry">
15550       <div class="title">
15551         <a href="https://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>
15552       </div>
15553       <div class="date">
15554          7th December 2008
15555       </div>
15556       <div class="body">
15557         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
15558 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
15559 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
15560 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
15561 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
15562 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
15563 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
15564 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
15565
15566 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
15567 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
15568 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
15569 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
15570 of these cards.</p>
15571
15572       </div>
15573       <div class="tags">
15574
15575
15576         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
15577
15578
15579       </div>
15580     </div>
15581     <div class="padding"></div>
15582
15583     <div class="entry">
15584       <div class="title">
15585         <a href="https://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>
15586       </div>
15587       <div class="date">
15588         25th November 2008
15589       </div>
15590       <div class="body">
15591         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
15592 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
15593 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
15594 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
15595 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
15596 notes are available on
15597 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
15598 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
15599 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
15600 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
15601 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
15602 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
15603 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
15604 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
15605 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
15606
15607 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
15608 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
15609
15610       </div>
15611       <div class="tags">
15612
15613
15614         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
15615
15616
15617       </div>
15618     </div>
15619     <div class="padding"></div>
15620
15621     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
15622     <div id="sidebar">
15623
15624
15625
15626 <h2>Archive</h2>
15627 <ul>
15628
15629 <li>2023
15630 <ul>
15631
15632 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15633
15634 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15635
15636 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15637
15638 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15639
15640 </ul></li>
15641
15642 <li>2022
15643 <ul>
15644
15645 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15646
15647 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15648
15649 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15650
15651 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15652
15653 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15654
15655 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15656
15657 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15658
15659 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15660
15661 </ul></li>
15662
15663 <li>2021
15664 <ul>
15665
15666 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15667
15668 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15669
15670 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15671
15672 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/06/">June (1)</a></li>
15673
15674 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/07/">July (3)</a></li>
15675
15676 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15677
15678 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15679
15680 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15681
15682 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15683
15684 </ul></li>
15685
15686 <li>2020
15687 <ul>
15688
15689 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15690
15691 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/03/">March (2)</a></li>
15692
15693 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15694
15695 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15696
15697 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15698
15699 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15700
15701 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15702
15703 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15704
15705 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15706
15707 </ul></li>
15708
15709 <li>2019
15710 <ul>
15711
15712 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15713
15714 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15715
15716 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15717
15718 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/05/">May (2)</a></li>
15719
15720 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15721
15722 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15723
15724 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15725
15726 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15727
15728 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15729
15730 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15731
15732 </ul></li>
15733
15734 <li>2018
15735 <ul>
15736
15737 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
15738
15739 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
15740
15741 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15742
15743 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15744
15745 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15746
15747 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/07/">July (5)</a></li>
15748
15749 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15750
15751 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15752
15753 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15754
15755 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/11/">November (2)</a></li>
15756
15757 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15758
15759 </ul></li>
15760
15761 <li>2017
15762 <ul>
15763
15764 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15765
15766 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15767
15768 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15769
15770 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15771
15772 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15773
15774 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15775
15776 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15777
15778 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15779
15780 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15781
15782 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15783
15784 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15785
15786 </ul></li>
15787
15788 <li>2016
15789 <ul>
15790
15791 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15792
15793 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15794
15795 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15796
15797 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
15798
15799 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
15800
15801 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15802
15803 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15804
15805 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
15806
15807 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15808
15809 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
15810
15811 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
15812
15813 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15814
15815 </ul></li>
15816
15817 <li>2015
15818 <ul>
15819
15820 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15821
15822 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15823
15824 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
15825
15826 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
15827
15828 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15829
15830 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
15831
15832 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
15833
15834 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15835
15836 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15837
15838 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15839
15840 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
15841
15842 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15843
15844 </ul></li>
15845
15846 <li>2014
15847 <ul>
15848
15849 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15850
15851 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15852
15853 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
15854
15855 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15856
15857 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15858
15859 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15860
15861 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15862
15863 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15864
15865 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15866
15867 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
15868
15869 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15870
15871 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15872
15873 </ul></li>
15874
15875 <li>2013
15876 <ul>
15877
15878 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
15879
15880 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
15881
15882 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
15883
15884 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
15885
15886 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15887
15888 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
15889
15890 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15891
15892 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15893
15894 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15895
15896 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
15897
15898 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
15899
15900 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15901
15902 </ul></li>
15903
15904 <li>2012
15905 <ul>
15906
15907 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15908
15909 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
15910
15911 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
15912
15913 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
15914
15915 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
15916
15917 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
15918
15919 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
15920
15921 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15922
15923 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
15924
15925 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
15926
15927 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
15928
15929 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15930
15931 </ul></li>
15932
15933 <li>2011
15934 <ul>
15935
15936 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
15937
15938 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15939
15940 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
15941
15942 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15943
15944 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15945
15946 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15947
15948 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15949
15950 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15951
15952 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
15953
15954 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15955
15956 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15957
15958 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15959
15960 </ul></li>
15961
15962 <li>2010
15963 <ul>
15964
15965 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15966
15967 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15968
15969 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15970
15971 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15972
15973 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15974
15975 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
15976
15977 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
15978
15979 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
15980
15981 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
15982
15983 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15984
15985 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
15986
15987 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
15988
15989 </ul></li>
15990
15991 <li>2009
15992 <ul>
15993
15994 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
15995
15996 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
15997
15998 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
15999
16000 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
16001
16002 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
16003
16004 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
16005
16006 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
16007
16008 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
16009
16010 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
16011
16012 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
16013
16014 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
16015
16016 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
16017
16018 </ul></li>
16019
16020 <li>2008
16021 <ul>
16022
16023 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
16024
16025 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
16026
16027 </ul></li>
16028
16029 </ul>
16030
16031
16032
16033 <h2>Tags</h2>
16034 <ul>
16035
16036  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (19)</a></li>
16037
16038  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
16039
16040  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
16041
16042  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
16043
16044  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/betalkontant">betalkontant (9)</a></li>
16045
16046  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (12)</a></li>
16047
16048  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
16049
16050  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
16051
16052  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
16053
16054  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (193)</a></li>
16055
16056  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (159)</a></li>
16057
16058  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (9)</a></li>
16059
16060  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (11)</a></li>
16061
16062  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (18)</a></li>
16063
16064  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (30)</a></li>
16065
16066  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
16067
16068  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (449)</a></li>
16069
16070  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
16071
16072  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (14)</a></li>
16073
16074  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (34)</a></li>
16075
16076  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
16077
16078  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (20)</a></li>
16079
16080  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
16081
16082  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (43)</a></li>
16083
16084  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (16)</a></li>
16085
16086  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (23)</a></li>
16087
16088  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi (4)</a></li>
16089
16090  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
16091
16092  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (5)</a></li>
16093
16094  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
16095
16096  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc (5)</a></li>
16097
16098  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
16099
16100  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
16101
16102  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/madewithcc">madewithcc (3)</a></li>
16103
16104  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
16105
16106  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (45)</a></li>
16107
16108  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (15)</a></li>
16109
16110  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5 (23)</a></li>
16111
16112  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (320)</a></li>
16113
16114  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (198)</a></li>
16115
16116  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (40)</a></li>
16117
16118  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
16119
16120  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch (3)</a></li>
16121
16122  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (75)</a></li>
16123
16124  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (114)</a></li>
16125
16126  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
16127
16128  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
16129
16130  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
16131
16132  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
16133
16134  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (17)</a></li>
16135
16136  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
16137
16138  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (7)</a></li>
16139
16140  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
16141
16142  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (59)</a></li>
16143
16144  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
16145
16146  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
16147
16148  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (74)</a></li>
16149
16150  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (7)</a></li>
16151
16152  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (14)</a></li>
16153
16154  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (64)</a></li>
16155
16156  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (5)</a></li>
16157
16158  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
16159
16160  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
16161
16162  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (20)</a></li>
16163
16164  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (78)</a></li>
16165
16166  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
16167
16168  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (42)</a></li>
16169
16170 </ul>
16171
16172
16173     </div>
16174     <p style="text-align: right">
16175  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
16176 </p>
16177
16178   </body>
16179 </html>