blog/tags/debian/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="debian.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         13th February 2018
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>A new version of the
  32 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
  33 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
  34 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
  35 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
  36 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
  37 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
  38 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
  39 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
  40 well.</p>
  41
  42 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
  43 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
  44 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
  45 in Debian.</p>
  46
  47 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  48 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  49 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  50
  51       </div>
  52       <div class="tags">
  53
  54
  55         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  56
  57
  58       </div>
  59     </div>
  60     <div class="padding"></div>
  61
  62     <div class="entry">
  63       <div class="title">
  64         <a href="http://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>
  65       </div>
  66       <div class="date">
  67         17th December 2017
  68       </div>
  69       <div class="body">
  70         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
  71 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
  72 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
  73 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
  74 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
  75 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
  76 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
  77 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
  78 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
  79 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
  80 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
  81 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
  82 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
  83
  84 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
  85 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
  86 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
  87 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
  88 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
  89
  90 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
  91 team, flocking together on the
  92 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
  93 mailing list and the
  94 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
  95 IRC channel.</p>
  96
  97 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
  98 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
  99 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
 100
 101       </div>
 102       <div class="tags">
 103
 104
 105         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 106
 107
 108       </div>
 109     </div>
 110     <div class="padding"></div>
 111
 112     <div class="entry">
 113       <div class="title">
 114         <a href="http://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>
 115       </div>
 116       <div class="date">
 117          9th October 2017
 118       </div>
 119       <div class="body">
 120         <p>At my nearby maker space,
 121 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
 122 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
 123 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
 124 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
 125 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
 126 as the software involved,
 127 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
 128 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
 129 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
 130 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
 131 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
 132 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
 133 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
 134
 135 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
 136 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
 137 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
 138 on
 139 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
 140 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
 141
 142 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
 143 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
 144 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
 145 upstream version.</p>
 146
 147 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
 148 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
 149 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
 150 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
 151 Debian, check out
 152 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
 153 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
 154 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
 155
 156 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 157 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 158 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 159
 160       </div>
 161       <div class="tags">
 162
 163
 164         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 165
 166
 167       </div>
 168     </div>
 169     <div class="padding"></div>
 170
 171     <div class="entry">
 172       <div class="title">
 173         <a href="http://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>
 174       </div>
 175       <div class="date">
 176         29th September 2017
 177       </div>
 178       <div class="body">
 179         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
 180 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
 181 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
 182 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
 183 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
 184 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
 185 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
 186 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
 187 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
 188 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
 189 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
 190 listen.</p>
 191
 192 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
 193 visualizing this information up and running for
 194 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
 195 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
 196 library.  The solution is based on the
 197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
 198 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
 199 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
 200 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
 201 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
 202 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
 203 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
 204 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
 205
 206 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
 207 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
 208 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
 209 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
 210 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
 211 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
 212 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
 213 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
 214
 215 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
 216 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
 217 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
 218 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
 219 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
 220 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
 221 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
 222 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
 223 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
 224 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
 225 mentioned in
 226 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
 227 issue for the topic</a>.
 228
 229 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
 230
 231       </div>
 232       <div class="tags">
 233
 234
 235         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 236
 237
 238       </div>
 239     </div>
 240     <div class="padding"></div>
 241
 242     <div class="entry">
 243       <div class="title">
 244         <a href="http://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>
 245       </div>
 246       <div class="date">
 247         24th September 2017
 248       </div>
 249       <div class="body">
 250         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
 251 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
 252 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
 253 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
 254 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
 255 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
 256 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
 257 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
 258 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
 259
 260 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
 261 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
 262 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
 263 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
 264
 265 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
 266 clone of two python scripts:</p>
 267
 268 <ol>
 269
 270 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
 271   testing).</li>
 272
 273 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
 274   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
 275
 276 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
 277   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
 278
 279 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
 280
 281 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
 282   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
 283   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
 284
 285 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
 286   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
 287
 288 </ol>
 289
 290 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
 291 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
 292 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
 293 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
 294 very cheaply
 295 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
 296 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
 297 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
 298
 299 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
 300 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
 301 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
 302 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
 303 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
 304 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
 305 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
 306 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
 307
 308 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
 309 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
 310 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
 311 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
 312 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
 313 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
 314 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
 315 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
 316 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
 317 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
 318 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
 319 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
 320
 321       </div>
 322       <div class="tags">
 323
 324
 325         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 326
 327
 328       </div>
 329     </div>
 330     <div class="padding"></div>
 331
 332     <div class="entry">
 333       <div class="title">
 334         <a href="http://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>
 335       </div>
 336       <div class="date">
 337          9th August 2017
 338       </div>
 339       <div class="body">
 340         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
 341 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
 342 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
 343 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
 344 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
 345 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
 346 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
 347
 348 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
 349 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
 350 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
 351 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
 352 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
 353 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
 354 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
 355 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
 356 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
 357 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
 358 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
 359 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
 360 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
 361
 362 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
 363 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
 364 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
 365 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
 366 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
 367 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
 368 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
 369 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
 370 collector for a few days now.</p>
 371
 372 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
 373
 374 <ol>
 375
 376 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
 377
 378 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
 379 <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>
 380
 381 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
 382
 383 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
 384 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
 385 found a GSM station).</li>
 386
 387 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
 388
 389 </ol>
 390
 391 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
 392 running, I decided to package
 393 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
 394 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
 395 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
 396 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
 397 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
 398
 399 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
 400 commercial tools like
 401 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
 402 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
 403 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
 404 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
 405 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
 406 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
 407 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
 408 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
 409 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
 410 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
 411 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
 412 of government officials...</p>
 413
 414 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
 415 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
 416 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
 417 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
 418 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
 419 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
 420 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
 421 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
 422 one frequency?</p>
 423
 424       </div>
 425       <div class="tags">
 426
 427
 428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 429
 430
 431       </div>
 432     </div>
 433     <div class="padding"></div>
 434
 435     <div class="entry">
 436       <div class="title">
 437         <a href="http://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>
 438       </div>
 439       <div class="date">
 440         25th July 2017
 441       </div>
 442       <div class="body">
 443         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
 444
 445 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
 446 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 447 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
 448 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
 449 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
 450 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
 451 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
 452 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
 453 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
 454 as a web page</a>.</p>
 455
 456 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
 457 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
 458 in
 459 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
 460 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
 461 and
 462 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
 463 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
 464 project.  I hope
 465 "<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
 466 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
 467
 468       </div>
 469       <div class="tags">
 470
 471
 472         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 473
 474
 475       </div>
 476     </div>
 477     <div class="padding"></div>
 478
 479     <div class="entry">
 480       <div class="title">
 481         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
 482       </div>
 483       <div class="date">
 484          3rd June 2017
 485       </div>
 486       <div class="body">
 487         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
 488 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
 489 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
 490 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
 491 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
 492 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
 493 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
 494
 495 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
 496
 497 <blockquote>
 498 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
 499 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
 500 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
 501
 502 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
 503 på temaet:</p>
 504 <ol>
 505 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
 506 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
 507 </ol>
 508
 509 </blockquote>
 510
 511 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
 512
 513 <blockquote>
 514 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
 515 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
 516 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
 517
 518 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
 519 temaet:</p>
 520
 521 <ol>
 522 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
 523 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
 524 </ol>
 525
 526 </blockquote>
 527
 528 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
 529 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
 530 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
 531 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
 532 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
 533 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
 534 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
 535
 536       </div>
 537       <div class="tags">
 538
 539
 540         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
 541
 542
 543       </div>
 544     </div>
 545     <div class="padding"></div>
 546
 547     <div class="entry">
 548       <div class="title">
 549         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
 550       </div>
 551       <div class="date">
 552          9th March 2017
 553       </div>
 554       <div class="body">
 555         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
 556 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
 557 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
 558 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
 559 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
 560 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
 561 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
 562 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
 563
 564 <p><blockquote>
 565 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
 566 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
 567 </blockquote></p>
 568
 569 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
 570 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
 571 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
 572 are noticed.</p>
 573
 574 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
 575 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
 576 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
 577 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
 578 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
 579 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
 580
 581 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
 582 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
 583 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
 584 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
 585 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
 586 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
 587
 588 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
 589
 590 <p><blockquote><pre>
 591 [...]
 592 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
 593 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
 594         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
 595         age:    7863311
 596         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
 597         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
 598         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
 599         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
 600         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
 601         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
 602         per-op statistics
 603                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 604              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
 605              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
 606               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
 607               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
 608             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
 609                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
 610                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
 611               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
 612                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
 613              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
 614                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
 615               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
 616                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
 617               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
 618                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
 619              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
 620          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
 621               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
 622               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
 623             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
 624               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 625
 626 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
 627 [...]
 628 </pre></blockquote></p>
 629
 630 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
 631 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
 632 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
 633 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
 634 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
 635 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
 636 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
 637 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
 638 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
 639 mount options.</p>
 640
 641 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
 642 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
 643 But according to
 644 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
 645 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
 646 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
 647 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
 648 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
 649 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
 650
 651 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
 652 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
 653 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
 654 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
 655 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
 656
 657       </div>
 658       <div class="tags">
 659
 660
 661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 662
 663
 664       </div>
 665     </div>
 666     <div class="padding"></div>
 667
 668     <div class="entry">
 669       <div class="title">
 670         <a href="http://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>
 671       </div>
 672       <div class="date">
 673          3rd March 2017
 674       </div>
 675       <div class="body">
 676         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
 677 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
 678 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
 679 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
 680 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
 681 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
 682 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
 683 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
 684 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
 685
 686 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
 687
 688 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
 689 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
 690 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
 691 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
 692 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
 693 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
 694 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
 695 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
 696
 697       </div>
 698       <div class="tags">
 699
 700
 701         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 702
 703
 704       </div>
 705     </div>
 706     <div class="padding"></div>
 707
 708     <div class="entry">
 709       <div class="title">
 710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
 711       </div>
 712       <div class="date">
 713          1st March 2017
 714       </div>
 715       <div class="body">
 716         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
 717 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
 718 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
 719 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
 720 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
 721 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
 722 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
 723 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
 724 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
 725 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
 726 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
 727
 728 <blockquote><pre>
 729 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 730   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
 731   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
 732      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 733      sleep 1; \
 734   done
 735 300
 736 0+1 oppføringer inn
 737 0+1 oppføringer ut
 738 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
 739 4
 740 8
 741 12
 742 17
 743 21
 744 %
 745 </pre></blockquote>
 746
 747 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
 748 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
 749 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
 750 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
 751
 752 <blockquote><pre>
 753 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 754   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
 755   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
 756      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 757      sleep 1; \
 758   done
 759 1079
 760 0+1 oppføringer inn
 761 0+1 oppføringer ut
 762 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
 763 433
 764 1028
 765 1031
 766 1035
 767 1038
 768 %
 769 </pre></blockquote>
 770
 771 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
 772 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
 773
 774 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
 775 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
 776 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
 777 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
 778 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
 779 post.</p>
 780
 781       </div>
 782       <div class="tags">
 783
 784
 785         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 786
 787
 788       </div>
 789     </div>
 790     <div class="padding"></div>
 791
 792     <div class="entry">
 793       <div class="title">
 794         <a href="http://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>
 795       </div>
 796       <div class="date">
 797          9th January 2017
 798       </div>
 799       <div class="body">
 800         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
 801 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
 802 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
 803 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
 804 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
 805 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
 806 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
 807 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
 808 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
 809 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
 810 this:
 811
 812 <p><pre>
 813 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 814  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
 815  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
 816  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
 817  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
 818  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
 819  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
 820  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
 821  8  * * *
 822  9  * * *
 823 [...]
 824 </pre></p>
 825
 826 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
 827 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
 828 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
 829 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
 830 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
 831 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
 832 traceroute request.</p>
 833
 834 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
 835 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
 836 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
 837 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
 838 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
 839
 840 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
 841 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
 842 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
 843 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
 844 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
 845 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
 846 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
 847 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
 848 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
 849
 850 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
 851 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
 852 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
 853 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
 854 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
 855 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
 856 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
 857 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
 858 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
 859 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
 860 render the page (in HAR format using
 861 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
 862 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
 863 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
 864 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
 865 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
 866
 867 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
 868 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>
 869
 870 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
 871 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
 872 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
 873 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
 874 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
 875 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
 876 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
 877 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
 878 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
 879 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
 880 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
 881 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
 882 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
 883 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
 884
 885 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
 886 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>
 887
 888 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
 889 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
 890 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
 891 question.
 892 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
 893 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
 894 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
 895 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
 896 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
 897 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
 898 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
 899
 900 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
 901 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>
 902
 903 <p>In the process, I came across the
 904 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
 905 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
 906 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
 907 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
 908 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
 909 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
 910 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
 911 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
 912 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
 913 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
 914 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
 915 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
 916 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
 917 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
 918
 919 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
 920 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>
 921
 922 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
 923 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
 924 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
 925 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
 926
 927 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
 928 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
 929 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
 930 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
 931 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
 932 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
 933 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
 934
 935 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
 936 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
 937 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
 938 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
 939 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
 940 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
 941 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
 942
 943 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
 944 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
 945 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
 946 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
 947
 948 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 949 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 950 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 951
 952       </div>
 953       <div class="tags">
 954
 955
 956         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 957
 958
 959       </div>
 960     </div>
 961     <div class="padding"></div>
 962
 963     <div class="entry">
 964       <div class="title">
 965         <a href="http://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>
 966       </div>
 967       <div class="date">
 968         23rd December 2016
 969       </div>
 970       <div class="body">
 971         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
 972 readers probably know, I have been working on the
 973 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
 974 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
 975 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
 976 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
 977 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
 978 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
 979 metadata format.  And today,
 980 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
 981 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
 982 ie using fnmatch():</p>
 983
 984 <p><pre>
 985 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
 986   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
 987 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
 988 Name: pymissile
 989 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
 990 Package: pymissile
 991 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
 992 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
 993 Name: libnxt
 994 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
 995 Package: libnxt
 996 ---
 997 Identifier: t2n [generic]
 998 Name: t2n
 999 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
1000 Package: t2n
1001 ---
1002 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
1003 Name: python-nxt
1004 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
1005 Package: python-nxt
1006 ---
1007 Identifier: nbc [generic]
1008 Name: nbc
1009 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
1010 Package: nbc
1011 %
1012 </pre></p>
1013
1014 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
1015 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
1016
1017 <p><pre>
1018 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
1019 pymissile
1020 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
1021 libnxt
1022 nbc
1023 python-nxt
1024 t2n
1025 %
1026 </pre></p>
1027
1028 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
1029 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
1030
1031 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
1032 make the most of the hardware they have, please
1033 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
1034 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
1035 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
1036 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
1037 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
1038 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
1039 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
1040 part of my involvement in
1041 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
1042 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
1043 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
1044 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
1045 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
1046 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
1047 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
1048 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
1049 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
1050
1051 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1052 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1053 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1054
1055       </div>
1056       <div class="tags">
1057
1058
1059         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1060
1061
1062       </div>
1063     </div>
1064     <div class="padding"></div>
1065
1066     <div class="entry">
1067       <div class="title">
1068         <a href="http://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>
1069       </div>
1070       <div class="date">
1071         20th December 2016
1072       </div>
1073       <div class="body">
1074         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1075 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
1076 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
1077 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
1078 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
1079 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
1080 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
1081 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
1082 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
1083 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
1084
1085 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
1086
1087 <p><pre>
1088 % isenkram-lookup
1089 bluez
1090 cheese
1091 ethtool
1092 fprintd
1093 fprintd-demo
1094 gkrellm-thinkbat
1095 hdapsd
1096 libpam-fprintd
1097 pidgin-blinklight
1098 thinkfan
1099 tlp
1100 tp-smapi-dkms
1101 tp-smapi-source
1102 tpb
1103 %
1104 </pre></p>
1105
1106 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
1107 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
1108 I have all the firmware my machine need:
1109
1110 <p><pre>
1111 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1112 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1113 %
1114 </pre></p>
1115
1116 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
1117 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
1118 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
1119 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
1120 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
1121 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
1122 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
1123 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
1124
1125 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
1126 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
1127 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
1128
1129 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
1130 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
1131 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
1132 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
1133 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
1134 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
1135 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
1136 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
1137 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
1138 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
1139 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
1140 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
1141 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
1142 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
1143 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
1144 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
1145 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
1146 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
1147 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
1148 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
1149 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
1150 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
1151 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
1152 zd1211-firmware</p>
1153
1154 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
1155 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
1156 maintainer to
1157 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
1158 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
1159 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
1160 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
1161
1162 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
1163 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
1164 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
1165 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
1166 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
1167
1168       </div>
1169       <div class="tags">
1170
1171
1172         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1173
1174
1175       </div>
1176     </div>
1177     <div class="padding"></div>
1178
1179     <div class="entry">
1180       <div class="title">
1181         <a href="http://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>
1182       </div>
1183       <div class="date">
1184         11th December 2016
1185       </div>
1186       <div class="body">
1187         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
1188
1189 <p>In my early years, I played
1190 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
1191 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
1192 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
1193 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
1194 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
1195 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
1196 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
1197 small.</p>
1198
1199 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
1200 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
1201 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
1202 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
1203 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
1204 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
1205 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
1206 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
1207 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
1208
1209 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
1210 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
1211 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
1212 advantages of the
1213 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
1214 where information about each planet is easily available with common
1215 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
1216 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
1217 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
1218 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
1219 after less then a week.</p>
1220
1221 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
1222 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
1223 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
1224
1225 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1226 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1227 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1228
1229       </div>
1230       <div class="tags">
1231
1232
1233         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1234
1235
1236       </div>
1237     </div>
1238     <div class="padding"></div>
1239
1240     <div class="entry">
1241       <div class="title">
1242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
1243       </div>
1244       <div class="date">
1245         25th November 2016
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="body">
1248         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
1249 installation system, observing how using
1250 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
1251 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
1252 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
1253 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
1254 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
1255 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
1256 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
1257 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
1258 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
1259 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
1260 up the process make perfect sense.
1261
1262 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
1263 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
1264 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
1265 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
1266 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
1267 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
1268 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
1269 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
1270 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
1271 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
1272
1273 <blockquote><pre>
1274 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
1275 </pre></blockquote>
1276
1277 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
1278 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
1279 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
1280 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
1281 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
1282 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
1283 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
1284 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
1285 tested its impact.</p>
1286
1287
1288       </div>
1289       <div class="tags">
1290
1291
1292         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1293
1294
1295       </div>
1296     </div>
1297     <div class="padding"></div>
1298
1299     <div class="entry">
1300       <div class="title">
1301         <a href="http://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>
1302       </div>
1303       <div class="date">
1304         24th November 2016
1305       </div>
1306       <div class="body">
1307         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
1308 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
1309 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
1310 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
1311 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
1312 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
1313 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
1314 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
1315 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
1316 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
1317 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1318 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
1319 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1320 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
1321 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
1322 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
1323 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
1324 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
1325 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
1326
1327 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
1328 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
1329 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
1330 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
1331 api.apertium.org.  Se
1332 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
1333 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
1334 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
1335 nynorsk.</p>
1336
1337 <hr/>
1338
1339 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
1340 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
1341 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
1342 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
1343 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
1344 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
1345 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
1346 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
1347 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
1348 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
1349 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1350 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
1351 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1352 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
1353 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
1354 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
1355 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
1356 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
1357 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
1358
1359 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
1360 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
1361 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
1362 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
1363 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
1364 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
1365 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
1366 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
1367 nynorsk.</p>
1368
1369       </div>
1370       <div class="tags">
1371
1372
1373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
1374
1375
1376       </div>
1377     </div>
1378     <div class="padding"></div>
1379
1380     <div class="entry">
1381       <div class="title">
1382         <a href="http://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>
1383       </div>
1384       <div class="date">
1385         13th November 2016
1386       </div>
1387       <div class="body">
1388         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
1389 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
1390 multi-threaded program, finally
1391 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
1392 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
1393 months since
1394 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
1395 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
1396 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
1397 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
1398 JavaScript libraries.</p>
1399
1400 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
1401
1402 <p><blockquote>
1403 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
1404 </blockquote></p>
1405
1406 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
1407 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
1408 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
1409 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
1410 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
1411
1412 <p><blockquote>
1413 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
1414 </blockquote></p>
1415
1416 <p>See the project home page and the
1417 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
1418 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
1419 working.</p>
1420
1421       </div>
1422       <div class="tags">
1423
1424
1425         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1426
1427
1428       </div>
1429     </div>
1430     <div class="padding"></div>
1431
1432     <div class="entry">
1433       <div class="title">
1434         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
1435       </div>
1436       <div class="date">
1437          4th November 2016
1438       </div>
1439       <div class="body">
1440         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
1441 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
1442 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
1443 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
1444 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
1445 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
1446 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
1447 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
1448 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
1449 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
1450 and had
1451 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
1452 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
1453 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
1454 loved ones. :)</p>
1455
1456 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
1457 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
1458 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
1459 building
1460 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
1461 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
1462 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
1463 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
1464 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
1465 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
1466 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
1467 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
1468
1469 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
1470
1471 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
1472 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
1473 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
1474 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
1475 the battery status run low:</p>
1476
1477 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
1478    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
1479 </video></p>
1480
1481 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
1482 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
1483
1484 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
1485 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
1486 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
1487 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
1488 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
1489 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
1490 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
1491 should.</p>
1492
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="tags">
1495
1496
1497         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1498
1499
1500       </div>
1501     </div>
1502     <div class="padding"></div>
1503
1504     <div class="entry">
1505       <div class="title">
1506         <a href="http://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>
1507       </div>
1508       <div class="date">
1509         10th October 2016
1510       </div>
1511       <div class="body">
1512         <p>In July
1513 <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
1514 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
1515 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
1516 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
1517
1518 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
1519 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
1520 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
1521 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
1522 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
1523 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
1524 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
1525 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
1526 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
1527 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
1528 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
1529 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
1530 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
1531 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
1532 time.</p>
1533
1534 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
1535 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
1536 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
1537 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
1538 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
1539 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
1540 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
1541
1542 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
1543 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
1544 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
1545 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
1546 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
1547 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
1548 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
1549 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
1550 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
1551 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
1552
1553 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
1554
1555 <ol>
1556
1557 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
1558 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
1559 know, so you need to install it.
1560
1561 <pre>
1562 apt install git tor chromium
1563 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1564 </pre></li>
1565
1566 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
1567 block below.</li>
1568
1569 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
1570 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
1571
1572 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
1573 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
1574 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
1575 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
1576 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
1577
1578 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
1579 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
1580 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
1581 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
1582 a associated contact database.</li>
1583
1584 </ol>
1585
1586 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
1587 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
1588 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
1589 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
1590 example
1591 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
1592 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
1593 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
1594 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
1595 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
1596 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
1597 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
1598 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
1599 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
1600 working on Debian Stable.</p>
1601
1602 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
1603 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
1604 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
1605
1606 <pre>
1607 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
1608 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
1609 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
1610 --- a/js/background.js
1611 +++ b/js/background.js
1612 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
1613          });
1614      });
1615
1616 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1617 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
1618      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
1619 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1620 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1621      var messageReceiver;
1622      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1623          if (messageReceiver) {
1624 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
1625 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
1626 --- a/js/expire.js
1627 +++ b/js/expire.js
1628 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1629  ;(function() {
1630      'use strict';
1631 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1632 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
1633
1634      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1635
1636 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
1637 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
1638 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
1639 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
1640 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
1641              return {
1642                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
1643                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
1644 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
1645 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
1646 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
1647              };
1648          },
1649          clearQR: function() {
1650 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
1651 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
1652 --- a/options.html
1653 +++ b/options.html
1654 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
1655          &lt;div class='nav'>
1656            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
1657            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
1658 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
1659 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
1660 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
1661 +
1662 +         &lt;/div>
1663            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
1664            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
1665            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
1666 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
1667 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
1668 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
1669 +#!/bin/sh
1670 +set -e
1671 +cd $(dirname $0)
1672 +mkdir -p userdata
1673 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
1674 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
1675 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
1676 +fi
1677 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
1678 +exec chromium \
1679 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1680 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1681 EOF
1682 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
1683 </pre>
1684
1685 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1686 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1687 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1688
1689       </div>
1690       <div class="tags">
1691
1692
1693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1694
1695
1696       </div>
1697     </div>
1698     <div class="padding"></div>
1699
1700     <div class="entry">
1701       <div class="title">
1702         <a href="http://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>
1703       </div>
1704       <div class="date">
1705          7th October 2016
1706       </div>
1707       <div class="body">
1708         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1709 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
1710 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
1711 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
1712 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
1713 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
1714 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
1715 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
1716 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
1717 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
1718 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
1719 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
1720 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
1721
1722 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
1723 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
1724 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
1725 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
1726 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
1727 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
1728
1729 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
1730 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
1731 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
1732 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
1733 identifiers.</p>
1734
1735 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
1736 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
1737 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
1738 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
1739 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
1740 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
1741 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
1742 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
1743 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
1744 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
1745 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
1746 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
1747 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
1748 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
1749
1750 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
1751 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
1752 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
1753 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
1754 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
1755 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
1756 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
1757
1758 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
1759 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
1760 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
1761 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
1762 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
1763 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
1764 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
1765 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
1766 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
1767 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
1768 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
1769 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
1770 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
1771 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
1772 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
1773 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
1774 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
1775
1776 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
1777 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
1778 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
1779 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
1780 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
1781 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
1782 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
1783
1784 <p><pre>
1785 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
1786     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
1787 </pre></p>
1788
1789 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
1790 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
1791 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
1792 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
1793 to detect this?</p>
1794
1795 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
1796 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
1797 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
1798 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
1799 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
1800 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
1801 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
1802 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
1803 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
1804 directly if no such class exist.</p>
1805
1806 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1807 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1808 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
1809
1810 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
1811 please join us on our IRC channel
1812 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
1813 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
1814 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
1815 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
1816
1817 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1818 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1819 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1820
1821       </div>
1822       <div class="tags">
1823
1824
1825         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>.
1826
1827
1828       </div>
1829     </div>
1830     <div class="padding"></div>
1831
1832     <div class="entry">
1833       <div class="title">
1834         <a href="http://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>
1835       </div>
1836       <div class="date">
1837         30th August 2016
1838       </div>
1839       <div class="body">
1840         <p>In April we
1841 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
1842 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
1843 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
1844 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
1845 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
1846 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
1847 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
1848 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
1849 contributing using
1850 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1851 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
1852 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1853 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
1854 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1855 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
1856 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
1857
1858 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
1859 electronic form.</p>
1860
1861       </div>
1862       <div class="tags">
1863
1864
1865         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1866
1867
1868       </div>
1869     </div>
1870     <div class="padding"></div>
1871
1872     <div class="entry">
1873       <div class="title">
1874         <a href="http://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>
1875       </div>
1876       <div class="date">
1877         11th August 2016
1878       </div>
1879       <div class="body">
1880         <p>This summer, I read a great article
1881 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
1882 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
1883 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
1884 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
1885 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
1886 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
1887 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
1888 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
1889 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
1890 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
1891 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
1892 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
1893
1894 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
1895 get the system into Debian.  I
1896 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
1897 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
1898 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
1899 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
1900 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
1901 profiling information included in the source package.
1902 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
1903
1904 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
1905 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
1906
1907 <p><blockquote><pre>
1908 coz run --- program-to-run
1909 </pre></blockquote></p>
1910
1911 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
1912 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
1913 most, use a web browser and either point it to
1914 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
1915 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
1916 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
1917 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
1918 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
1919 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
1920 targeted experiments.</p>
1921
1922 <p>A video published by ACM
1923 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
1924 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
1925 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
1926 titled
1927 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
1928 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
1929
1930 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
1931 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
1932 because it uses a
1933 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
1934 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
1935 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
1936 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
1937
1938 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
1939 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
1940 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1941 C++ libraries.</p>
1942
1943       </div>
1944       <div class="tags">
1945
1946
1947         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1948
1949
1950       </div>
1951     </div>
1952     <div class="padding"></div>
1953
1954     <div class="entry">
1955       <div class="title">
1956         <a href="http://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>
1957       </div>
1958       <div class="date">
1959          7th July 2016
1960       </div>
1961       <div class="body">
1962         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1963 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1964 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1965 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
1966 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1967 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1968 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1969 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
1970 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1971 until a few days ago.</p>
1972
1973 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1974 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1975 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1976 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1977 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1978 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
1979 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1980
1981 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1982 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
1983 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1984 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1985 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
1986 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1987 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1988 him.</p>
1989
1990 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1991 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
1992 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1993 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
1994 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
1995 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1996 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1997 devices it would work for.</p>
1998
1999 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
2000 followed some instructions
2001 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
2002 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
2003 machine with Debian testing:</p>
2004
2005 <p><pre>
2006 adb reboot-bootloader
2007 fastboot oem rebootRUU
2008 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
2009 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
2010 fastboot reboot
2011 </pre></p>
2012
2013 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
2014 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
2015 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
2016 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
2017 too.</p>
2018
2019 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
2020 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
2021 like this:</p>
2022
2023 <p><pre>
2024 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
2025 </pre>
2026
2027 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
2028 this:</p>
2029
2030 <p><pre>
2031 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
2032 </pre></p>
2033
2034 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
2035 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
2036 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
2037 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
2038 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
2039
2040       </div>
2041       <div class="tags">
2042
2043
2044         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2045
2046
2047       </div>
2048     </div>
2049     <div class="padding"></div>
2050
2051     <div class="entry">
2052       <div class="title">
2053         <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">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
2054       </div>
2055       <div class="date">
2056          3rd July 2016
2057       </div>
2058       <div class="body">
2059         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
2060 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
2061 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
2062 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
2063 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
2064 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
2065 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
2066 Github source, compared it to the source in
2067 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
2068 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
2069 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
2070 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
2071 the recipe how I did it.</p>
2072
2073 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
2074
2075 <pre>
2076 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
2077 </pre>
2078
2079 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
2080 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
2081
2082 <pre>
2083 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
2084 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2085 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
2086 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
2087 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
2088          });
2089      });
2090
2091 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
2092 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
2093 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
2094 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
2095      var messageReceiver;
2096      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
2097          if (messageReceiver) {
2098 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
2099 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
2100 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
2101 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
2102  ;(function() {
2103      'use strict';
2104 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
2105 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
2106
2107      window.extension = window.extension || {};
2108
2109 EOF
2110 </pre>
2111
2112 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
2113 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
2114 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
2115 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
2116
2117 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
2118 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
2119
2120 <pre>
2121 #!/bin/sh
2122 cd $(dirname $0)
2123 mkdir -p userdata
2124 exec chromium \
2125   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
2126   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
2127 </pre>
2128
2129 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
2130 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
2131 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
2132 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
2133 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
2134
2135 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
2136 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
2137 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
2138 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
2139 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
2140 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
2141 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
2142 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
2143 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
2144 Signal from my laptop.
2145
2146 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
2147 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
2148 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
2149 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
2150 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
2151 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
2152 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
2153 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
2154 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
2155 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
2156 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
2157 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
2158
2159 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
2160 on this topic in
2161 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
2162 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
2163 phone</a>.</p>
2164
2165       </div>
2166       <div class="tags">
2167
2168
2169         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2170
2171
2172       </div>
2173     </div>
2174     <div class="padding"></div>
2175
2176     <div class="entry">
2177       <div class="title">
2178         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
2179       </div>
2180       <div class="date">
2181          6th June 2016
2182       </div>
2183       <div class="body">
2184         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
2185 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
2186 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
2187 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
2188 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
2189 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
2190 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
2191 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
2192 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
2193
2194 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
2195 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
2196 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
2197 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
2198 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
2199 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
2200 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
2201
2202 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
2203 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
2204 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
2205 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
2206 toten and parole.</p>
2207
2208 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
2209 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
2210 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
2211 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
2212 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
2213 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
2214 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
2215 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
2216 formats.</p>
2217
2218       </div>
2219       <div class="tags">
2220
2221
2222         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2223
2224
2225       </div>
2226     </div>
2227     <div class="padding"></div>
2228
2229     <div class="entry">
2230       <div class="title">
2231         <a href="http://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>
2232       </div>
2233       <div class="date">
2234          5th June 2016
2235       </div>
2236       <div class="body">
2237         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
2238 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
2239 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
2240 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
2241 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
2242 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
2243 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
2244 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
2245 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
2246 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
2247 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
2248 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
2249 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
2250 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
2251 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
2252 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
2253 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
2254 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
2255 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
2256 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
2257
2258 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
2259 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
2260 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
2261 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
2262 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
2263 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
2264 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
2265 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
2266 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
2267 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
2268 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
2269 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
2270 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
2271 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
2272
2273 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
2274 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
2275 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
2276 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
2277 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
2278 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
2279 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
2280 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
2281
2282 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
2283 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
2284 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
2285 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
2286 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
2287 information is collected from
2288 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
2289 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
2290 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
2291 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
2292 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
2293 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
2294 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
2295 type (preferably
2296 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
2297 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
2298 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
2299 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
2300
2301 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
2302 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
2303 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
2304
2305 <p><blockquote><pre>
2306 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
2307 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
2308   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
2309     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
2310     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
2311     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
2312   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
2313 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
2314 </pre></blockquote></p>
2315
2316 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
2317 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
2318 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
2319 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
2320
2321 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
2322 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
2323 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
2324
2325 <p><blockquote><pre>
2326 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
2327 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
2328 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
2329 %
2330 </pre></blockquote></p>
2331
2332 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
2333 MimeType= line.</p>
2334
2335 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
2336 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
2337 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
2338 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
2339 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
2340 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
2341 fixed. :)</p>
2342
2343       </div>
2344       <div class="tags">
2345
2346
2347         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2348
2349
2350       </div>
2351     </div>
2352     <div class="padding"></div>
2353
2354     <div class="entry">
2355       <div class="title">
2356         <a href="http://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>
2357       </div>
2358       <div class="date">
2359         25th May 2016
2360       </div>
2361       <div class="body">
2362         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
2363 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
2364 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
2365 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
2366 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
2367 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
2368 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
2369 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
2370 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
2371 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
2372 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
2373 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
2374
2375 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
2376 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
2377 is going away and is generally being replaced by
2378 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
2379 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
2380 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
2381 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
2382 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
2383 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
2384 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
2385 and see if it is recognised.</p>
2386
2387 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
2388 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
2389 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
2390
2391 <p><blockquote><pre>
2392 % isenkram-lookup
2393 bluez
2394 cheese
2395 fprintd
2396 fprintd-demo
2397 gkrellm-thinkbat
2398 hdapsd
2399 libpam-fprintd
2400 pidgin-blinklight
2401 thinkfan
2402 tleds
2403 tp-smapi-dkms
2404 tp-smapi-source
2405 tpb
2406 %p
2407 </pre></blockquote></p>
2408
2409 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
2410 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
2411 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2412 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
2413 See
2414 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
2415 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
2416
2417       </div>
2418       <div class="tags">
2419
2420
2421         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2422
2423
2424       </div>
2425     </div>
2426     <div class="padding"></div>
2427
2428     <div class="entry">
2429       <div class="title">
2430         <a href="http://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>
2431       </div>
2432       <div class="date">
2433         23rd May 2016
2434       </div>
2435       <div class="body">
2436         <p>Yesterday I updated the
2437 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
2438 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
2439 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
2440 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
2441 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
2442 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
2443 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
2444 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
2445 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
2446 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
2447
2448 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
2449 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
2450 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
2451 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
2452 capacity.</p>
2453
2454 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
2455
2456 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
2457 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
2458 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
2459 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
2460
2461 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
2462
2463 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
2464 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
2465 shrinking. :(</p>
2466
2467 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
2468 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
2469 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
2470 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
2471 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
2472 machine.</p>
2473
2474 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2475 check out the
2476 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2477 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2478 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
2479 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2480 Patches are very welcome.</p>
2481
2482 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2483 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2484 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2485
2486       </div>
2487       <div class="tags">
2488
2489
2490         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2491
2492
2493       </div>
2494     </div>
2495     <div class="padding"></div>
2496
2497     <div class="entry">
2498       <div class="title">
2499         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
2500       </div>
2501       <div class="date">
2502         12th May 2016
2503       </div>
2504       <div class="body">
2505         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
2506 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
2507 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
2508 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
2509 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
2510 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2511 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
2512 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
2513 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
2514 great if you could help out with
2515 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
2516 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
2517
2518       </div>
2519       <div class="tags">
2520
2521
2522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2523
2524
2525       </div>
2526     </div>
2527     <div class="padding"></div>
2528
2529     <div class="entry">
2530       <div class="title">
2531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
2532       </div>
2533       <div class="date">
2534          8th May 2016
2535       </div>
2536       <div class="body">
2537         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
2538 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
2539
2540 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
2541 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
2542 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
2543 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
2544 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
2545 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
2546 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
2547 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
2548 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
2549 players.</p>
2550
2551 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
2552 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
2553 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
2554 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
2555 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
2556 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
2557 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
2558 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
2559 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
2560 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
2561 support most file formats.</p>
2562
2563 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
2564 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
2565 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
2566 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
2567 listed first in the table.</p>
2568
2569 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
2570 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
2571 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
2572 support?</p>
2573
2574       </div>
2575       <div class="tags">
2576
2577
2578         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2579
2580
2581       </div>
2582     </div>
2583     <div class="padding"></div>
2584
2585     <div class="entry">
2586       <div class="title">
2587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
2588       </div>
2589       <div class="date">
2590          4th May 2016
2591       </div>
2592       <div class="body">
2593         A friend of mine made me aware of
2594 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
2595 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
2596 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
2597
2598 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
2599 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
2600 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
2601 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
2602 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
2603 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
2604 production started.</p>
2605
2606 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
2607 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
2608 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
2609
2610       </div>
2611       <div class="tags">
2612
2613
2614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2615
2616
2617       </div>
2618     </div>
2619     <div class="padding"></div>
2620
2621     <div class="entry">
2622       <div class="title">
2623         <a href="http://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>
2624       </div>
2625       <div class="date">
2626         10th April 2016
2627       </div>
2628       <div class="body">
2629         <p>During this weekends
2630 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
2631 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
2632 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
2633 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
2634 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
2635 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
2636 contributing using
2637 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2638 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
2639 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2640 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
2641 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2642 contributors</a>.</p>
2643
2644 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
2645 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
2646 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
2647 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
2648 available for many more languages.</p>
2649
2650       </div>
2651       <div class="tags">
2652
2653
2654         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2655
2656
2657       </div>
2658     </div>
2659     <div class="padding"></div>
2660
2661     <div class="entry">
2662       <div class="title">
2663         <a href="http://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>
2664       </div>
2665       <div class="date">
2666          7th April 2016
2667       </div>
2668       <div class="body">
2669         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
2670 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
2671 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
2672 But I might be wrong.</p>
2673
2674 <p>According to
2675 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
2676 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
2677 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
2678 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
2679 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
2680 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
2681 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
2682 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
2683 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
2684 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
2685
2686 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
2687 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
2688 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
2689 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
2690 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
2691 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
2692 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
2693 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2694 team status page</a>, and
2695 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
2696 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
2697
2698 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
2699 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
2700 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
2701 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
2702 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
2703 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
2704 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
2705 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
2706 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
2707 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
2708 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
2709 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
2710
2711       </div>
2712       <div class="tags">
2713
2714
2715         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2716
2717
2718       </div>
2719     </div>
2720     <div class="padding"></div>
2721
2722     <div class="entry">
2723       <div class="title">
2724         <a href="http://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>
2725       </div>
2726       <div class="date">
2727         23rd March 2016
2728       </div>
2729       <div class="body">
2730         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
2731 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
2732 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
2733 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
2734 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
2735 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
2736 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
2737 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
2738
2739 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
2740 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
2741 and lifetime prediction by running:
2742
2743 <p><pre>
2744 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
2745 </pre></p>
2746
2747 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
2748
2749 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
2750 entry yet):</p>
2751
2752 <p><pre>
2753 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
2754 </pre></p>
2755
2756 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
2757 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
2758 few years of data.</p>
2759
2760 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
2761 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
2762 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
2763 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
2764 know.  The issue is reported as
2765 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
2766 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
2767 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
2768 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
2769 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
2770
2771 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2772 check out the
2773 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2774 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2775 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
2776 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2777 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
2778
2779       </div>
2780       <div class="tags">
2781
2782
2783         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2784
2785
2786       </div>
2787     </div>
2788     <div class="padding"></div>
2789
2790     <div class="entry">
2791       <div class="title">
2792         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
2793       </div>
2794       <div class="date">
2795         15th March 2016
2796       </div>
2797       <div class="body">
2798         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
2799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
2800 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
2801 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
2802 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
2803 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
2804 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
2805 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
2806 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
2807 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
2808 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
2809
2810 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
2811 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
2812 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
2813 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
2814 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
2815 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
2816 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
2817 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
2818 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
2819 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
2820 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
2821
2822 <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>
2823
2824 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
2825 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
2826 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
2827 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
2828 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
2829 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
2830
2831 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
2832 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
2833 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
2834 and graphing.</p>
2835
2836 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
2837 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
2838 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
2839 on
2840 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2841 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
2842
2843       </div>
2844       <div class="tags">
2845
2846
2847         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2848
2849
2850       </div>
2851     </div>
2852     <div class="padding"></div>
2853
2854     <div class="entry">
2855       <div class="title">
2856         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
2857       </div>
2858       <div class="date">
2859         19th February 2016
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="body">
2862         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
2863 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
2864 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
2865 the code in the package in question, preferably in
2866 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
2867 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
2868
2869 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
2870 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
2871 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
2872 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
2873 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
2874 out what was wrong with
2875 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
2876 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
2877 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
2878 semi-automatically.</p>
2879
2880 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
2881 file based on the code in the source package,
2882 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
2883 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
2884 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
2885 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
2886 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
2887 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
2888 option in
2889 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
2890 blog posts from 2014</a>.
2891
2892 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
2893
2894 <p><pre>
2895 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
2896 </pre></p>
2897
2898 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
2899 this might not be the best option.</p>
2900
2901 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
2902 this approach in
2903 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
2904 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
2905 dpkg-copyright' option:
2906
2907 <p><pre>
2908 cme update dpkg-copyright
2909 </pre></p>
2910
2911 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
2912 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
2913
2914 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
2915 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
2916 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
2917 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
2918 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
2919 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
2920 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
2921 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
2922 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
2923 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
2924
2925 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
2926 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
2927 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
2928 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
2929
2930 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
2931 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
2932 planet.debian.org.</p>
2933
2934 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2935 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2936 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2937
2938 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
2939 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
2940
2941 <p><pre>
2942 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
2943   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
2944 </pre></p>
2945
2946 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
2947 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
2948 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
2949 with my packages in the future.</p>
2950
2951 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
2952 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
2953 command line.</p>
2954
2955       </div>
2956       <div class="tags">
2957
2958
2959         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2960
2961
2962       </div>
2963     </div>
2964     <div class="padding"></div>
2965
2966     <div class="entry">
2967       <div class="title">
2968         <a href="http://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>
2969       </div>
2970       <div class="date">
2971          4th February 2016
2972       </div>
2973       <div class="body">
2974         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
2975 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
2976 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
2977 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
2978 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
2979 about. :)</p>
2980
2981 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
2982 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
2983 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
2984 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
2985 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
2986 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
2987
2988 <blockquote><pre>
2989 % apt install appstream
2990 [...]
2991 % apt update
2992 [...]
2993 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
2994   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
2995 firmware-qlogic
2996 %
2997 </pre></blockquote>
2998
2999 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
3000 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
3001 a way appstream can use.</p>
3002
3003 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
3004 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
3005 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
3006 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
3007 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
3008 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
3009
3010 <blockquote><pre>
3011 % apt install appstream
3012 [...]
3013 % apt update
3014 [...]
3015 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
3016   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
3017 bkchem
3018 phototonic
3019 inkscape
3020 shutter
3021 tetzle
3022 geeqie
3023 xia
3024 pinta
3025 gthumb
3026 karbon
3027 comix
3028 mirage
3029 viewnior
3030 postr
3031 ristretto
3032 kolourpaint4
3033 eog
3034 eom
3035 gimagereader
3036 midori
3037 %
3038 </pre></blockquote>
3039
3040 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
3041 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
3042
3043       </div>
3044       <div class="tags">
3045
3046
3047         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3048
3049
3050       </div>
3051     </div>
3052     <div class="padding"></div>
3053
3054     <div class="entry">
3055       <div class="title">
3056         <a href="http://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>
3057       </div>
3058       <div class="date">
3059         24th January 2016
3060       </div>
3061       <div class="body">
3062         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
3063 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
3064 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
3065 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
3066 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
3067 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
3068 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
3069 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
3070 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
3071 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
3072 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
3073 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
3074 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
3075 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
3076 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
3077 entities.</p>
3078
3079 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
3080
3081 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
3082 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
3083 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
3084 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
3085 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
3086 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
3087 tool to do so is called
3088 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
3089 discovered it when I read
3090 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
3091 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
3092 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
3093 The python program was in Debian, but
3094 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
3095 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
3096 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
3097 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
3098 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
3099 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
3100 are now included
3101 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
3102
3103 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
3104 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
3105 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
3106 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
3107 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
3108 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
3109 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
3110 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
3111 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
3112 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
3113 about yourself with the services.</p>
3114
3115 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
3116 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
3117 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
3118 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
3119 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
3120 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
3121 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
3122 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
3123 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
3124 things.  A similar technique have been
3125 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
3126 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
3127 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
3128 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
3129 public.</p>
3130
3131 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
3132 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
3133 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
3134 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
3135
3136 <p>(I have uploaded
3137 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
3138 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
3139 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
3140
3141       </div>
3142       <div class="tags">
3143
3144
3145         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3146
3147
3148       </div>
3149     </div>
3150     <div class="padding"></div>
3151
3152     <div class="entry">
3153       <div class="title">
3154         <a href="http://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>
3155       </div>
3156       <div class="date">
3157         15th January 2016
3158       </div>
3159       <div class="body">
3160         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
3161 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
3162 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
3163 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
3164 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
3165 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
3166 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
3167 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
3168 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
3169 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
3170 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
3171 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
3172 was not the first to propose this, as the
3173 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
3174 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
3175 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
3176 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
3177
3178 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
3179 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
3180 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
3181 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
3182 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
3183
3184 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
3185 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
3186 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
3187 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
3188 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
3189 done in /etc/.</p>
3190
3191 <blockquote><pre>
3192 apt install apt-transport-tor
3193 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3194 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3195 </pre></blockquote>
3196
3197 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
3198 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
3199 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
3200 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
3201
3202 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
3203 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
3204 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
3205 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
3206 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
3207 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
3208
3209 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
3210 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
3211 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
3212 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
3213 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
3214
3215 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
3216 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
3217 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
3218 system.</p>
3219
3220       </div>
3221       <div class="tags">
3222
3223
3224         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3225
3226
3227       </div>
3228     </div>
3229     <div class="padding"></div>
3230
3231     <div class="entry">
3232       <div class="title">
3233         <a href="http://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>
3234       </div>
3235       <div class="date">
3236         23rd December 2015
3237       </div>
3238       <div class="body">
3239         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
3240 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
3241 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
3242 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
3243 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
3244 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
3245
3246 <p>A few days I came across
3247 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
3248 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
3249 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
3250 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
3251 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
3252 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
3253 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
3254 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
3255 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
3256 discovered the developer
3257 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
3258 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
3259 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
3260 archive.</p>
3261
3262 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
3263 it into Debian, where it currently
3264 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
3265 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
3266
3267 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
3268 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
3269 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
3270 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
3271 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
3272 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
3273 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
3274 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
3275 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
3276 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
3277 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
3278 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
3279
3280 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
3281 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
3282 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
3283 package show up in unstable.</p>
3284
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="tags">
3287
3288
3289         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3290
3291
3292       </div>
3293     </div>
3294     <div class="padding"></div>
3295
3296     <div class="entry">
3297       <div class="title">
3298         <a href="http://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>
3299       </div>
3300       <div class="date">
3301         20th December 2015
3302       </div>
3303       <div class="body">
3304         <p>Around three years ago, I created
3305 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
3306 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
3307 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
3308 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
3309 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
3310 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
3311 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
3312 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
3313 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
3314 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
3315 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
3316 with.</p>
3317
3318 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
3319 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
3320 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
3321 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
3322 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
3323 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
3324 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3325 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
3326 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
3327 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
3328 Debian version of appstream.</p>
3329
3330 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
3331 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
3332 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
3333 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
3334 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
3335 how do add the required
3336 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
3337 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
3338 this content:</p>
3339
3340 <blockquote><pre>
3341 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
3342 &lt;component&gt;
3343   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
3344   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
3345   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
3346   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
3347   &lt;description&gt;
3348     &lt;p&gt;
3349       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
3350       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
3351       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
3352       launcher.
3353     &lt;/p&gt;
3354   &lt;/description&gt;
3355   &lt;provides&gt;
3356     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
3357   &lt;/provides&gt;
3358 &lt;/component&gt;
3359 </pre></blockquote>
3360
3361 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
3362 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
3363 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
3364 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
3365 0202.</p>
3366
3367 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
3368 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
3369 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
3370 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
3371 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
3372 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
3373 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
3374 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
3375
3376 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
3377 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
3378 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
3379 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
3380 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
3381
3382 <blockquote><pre>
3383 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
3384 </pre></blockquote>
3385
3386 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
3387 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
3388 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
3389 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
3390 question.</p>
3391
3392 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
3393 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
3394
3395 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
3396 try running this command on the command line:</p>
3397
3398 <blockquote><pre>
3399 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
3400 </pre></blockquote>
3401
3402 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3404 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
3405
3406       </div>
3407       <div class="tags">
3408
3409
3410         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3411
3412
3413       </div>
3414     </div>
3415     <div class="padding"></div>
3416
3417     <div class="entry">
3418       <div class="title">
3419         <a href="http://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>
3420       </div>
3421       <div class="date">
3422         30th November 2015
3423       </div>
3424       <div class="body">
3425         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
3426 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
3427 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
3428 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
3429 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
3430
3431 <blockquote>
3432
3433 <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>
3434
3435 <blockquote>
3436 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
3437
3438 The first step is to choose a
3439 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
3440 code.<br/>
3441
3442 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
3443 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
3444
3445 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
3446 work<br/>
3447
3448 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
3449 </blockquote>
3450
3451 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
3452 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
3453 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
3454 0x57</a></small></p>
3455
3456 <p>As the Debian Website
3457 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
3458 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
3459 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
3460 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
3461 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
3462 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
3463 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
3464 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
3465 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
3466 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
3467 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
3468 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
3469 Freedom">FaiF</a>
3470 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
3471 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
3472 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
3473 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
3474 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
3475 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
3476 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
3477 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
3478 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
3479 In March the SFC supported a
3480 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
3481 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
3482 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
3483 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
3484 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
3485 conferences
3486 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
3487 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
3488 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
3489 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
3490 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
3491 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
3492 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
3493 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
3494 Software.</p>
3495
3496 <p>If you support Free Software,
3497 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
3498 what the SFC do, agree with their
3499 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
3500 principles</a>, are happy about their
3501 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
3502 work on a project that is an SFC
3503 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
3504 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
3505 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
3506 Allan Webber</a>,
3507 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
3508 Smith</a>,
3509 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
3510 Bacon</a>, myself and
3511 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
3512 becoming a
3513 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
3514 next week your donation will be
3515 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
3516 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
3517 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
3518 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
3519 social media accounts.</p>
3520
3521 </blockquote>
3522
3523 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
3524 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
3525 supporter too?</p>
3526
3527       </div>
3528       <div class="tags">
3529
3530
3531         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
3532
3533
3534       </div>
3535     </div>
3536     <div class="padding"></div>
3537
3538     <div class="entry">
3539       <div class="title">
3540         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
3541       </div>
3542       <div class="date">
3543         17th November 2015
3544       </div>
3545       <div class="body">
3546         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
3547 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
3548 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
3549 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
3550 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
3551 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
3552 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
3553 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
3554 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
3555 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
3556
3557 <pre>
3558 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
3559       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
3560 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
3561 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
3562 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3563 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3564 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3565 </pre>
3566
3567 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
3568 my old key.</p>
3569
3570 <p>If you signed my old key
3571 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
3572 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
3573 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
3574 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
3575
3576       </div>
3577       <div class="tags">
3578
3579
3580         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3581
3582
3583       </div>
3584     </div>
3585     <div class="padding"></div>
3586
3587     <div class="entry">
3588       <div class="title">
3589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
3590       </div>
3591       <div class="date">
3592         24th September 2015
3593       </div>
3594       <div class="body">
3595         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
3596 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
3597 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
3598 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
3599 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
3600 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
3601 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
3602
3603 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
3604
3605 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
3606 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
3607 by someone else.  I found
3608 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
3609 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
3610 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
3611 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
3612 from him.  Via
3613 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
3614 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
3615 discovered
3616 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
3617 available in Debian.</p>
3618
3619 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
3620 battery stats ever since. Now my
3621 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
3622 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
3623 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
3624 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
3625
3626 <pre>
3627 #!/bin/sh
3628 # Inspired by
3629 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
3630 # See also
3631 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
3632 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
3633
3634 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
3635     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
3636
3637 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
3638     (
3639         printf "timestamp,"
3640         for f in $files; do
3641             printf "%s," $f
3642         done
3643         echo
3644     ) > "$logfile"
3645 fi
3646
3647 log_battery() {
3648     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
3649     # when several log processes run in parallel.
3650     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
3651         for f in $files; do \
3652             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
3653         done)
3654     echo "$msg"
3655 }
3656
3657 cd /sys/class/power_supply
3658
3659 for bat in BAT*; do
3660     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
3661 done
3662 </pre>
3663
3664 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
3665 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
3666 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
3667 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
3668 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
3669 The code for the Debian package
3670 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
3671 available on github</a>.</p>
3672
3673 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
3674
3675 <pre>
3676 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
3677 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
3678 [...]
3679 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
3680 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
3681 </pre>
3682
3683 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
3684 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
3685 battery.</p>
3686
3687 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
3688 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
3689 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
3690 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
3691 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
3692 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
3693 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
3694 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
3695 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
3696 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
3697 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
3698 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
3699 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
3700 Linux too.</p>
3701
3702 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
3703 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
3704 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
3705 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
3706 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
3707 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
3708 load).</p>
3709
3710 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
3711 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
3712 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
3713 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
3714 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
3715 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
3716 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
3717 those.</p>
3718
3719 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
3720 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
3721 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
3722 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
3723 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
3724 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
3725 specific.</p>
3726
3727       </div>
3728       <div class="tags">
3729
3730
3731         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3732
3733
3734       </div>
3735     </div>
3736     <div class="padding"></div>
3737
3738     <div class="entry">
3739       <div class="title">
3740         <a href="http://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>
3741       </div>
3742       <div class="date">
3743          5th July 2015
3744       </div>
3745       <div class="body">
3746         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
3747 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
3748 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
3749 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
3750 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
3751 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
3752 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
3753 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
3754 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
3755 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
3756 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
3757
3758 <p>One tip I got was to use the
3759 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
3760 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
3761 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
3762 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
3763 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
3764 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
3765
3766 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
3767 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
3768 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
3769 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
3770 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
3771 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
3772 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
3773 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
3774 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
3775 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
3776 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
3777 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
3778 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
3779 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
3780 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
3781
3782 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
3783 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
3784 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
3785 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
3786
3787 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
3788 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
3789
3790 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
3791 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
3792 different
3793 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
3794 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
3795
3796       </div>
3797       <div class="tags">
3798
3799
3800         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3801
3802
3803       </div>
3804     </div>
3805     <div class="padding"></div>
3806
3807     <div class="entry">
3808       <div class="title">
3809         <a href="http://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>
3810       </div>
3811       <div class="date">
3812          3rd July 2015
3813       </div>
3814       <div class="body">
3815         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
3816 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
3817 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
3818 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
3819 flickering.</p>
3820
3821 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
3822 still as
3823 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
3824 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
3825 good help from
3826 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
3827 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
3828 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
3829 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
3830 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
3831 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
3832 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
3833 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
3834 deteriorated since X41.</p>
3835
3836 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
3837 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
3838 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
3839 have suggestions.</p>
3840
3841 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
3842 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
3843 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
3844
3845       </div>
3846       <div class="tags">
3847
3848
3849         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3850
3851
3852       </div>
3853     </div>
3854     <div class="padding"></div>
3855
3856     <div class="entry">
3857       <div class="title">
3858         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
3859       </div>
3860       <div class="date">
3861         22nd November 2014
3862       </div>
3863       <div class="body">
3864         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
3865 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
3866 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
3867 courtesy of
3868 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
3869 Schubert</a> and
3870 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
3871 McVittie</a>.
3872
3873 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
3874 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
3875 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
3876 you upgrade:</p>
3877
3878 <p><blockquote><pre>
3879 Package: systemd-sysv
3880 Pin: release o=Debian
3881 Pin-Priority: -1
3882 </pre></blockquote><p>
3883
3884 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
3885 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
3886 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
3887 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
3888 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
3889
3890 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
3891 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
3892 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
3893 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
3894 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
3895 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
3896
3897 <p><blockquote><pre>
3898 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
3899 </pre></blockquote><p>
3900
3901 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
3902
3903 <p><blockquote><pre>
3904 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
3905 </pre></blockquote><p>
3906
3907 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
3908 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
3909
3910 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
3911 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
3912 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
3913 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
3914 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
3915 Jessie is released.</p>
3916
3917 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
3918 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
3919 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
3920 line.</p>
3921
3922       </div>
3923       <div class="tags">
3924
3925
3926         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3927
3928
3929       </div>
3930     </div>
3931     <div class="padding"></div>
3932
3933     <div class="entry">
3934       <div class="title">
3935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
3936       </div>
3937       <div class="date">
3938         10th November 2014
3939       </div>
3940       <div class="body">
3941         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
3942 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
3943 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
3944
3945 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
3946 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
3947 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
3948 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
3949 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
3950 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
3951 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
3952 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3953 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
3954 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
3955 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3956 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
3957 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3958 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
3959 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
3960
3961 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3962 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
3963 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
3964 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3965 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
3966 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3967 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
3968 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3969 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3970 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
3971 were fairly easy, and
3972 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3973 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
3974 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3975 useful approach.</p>
3976
3977 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3978 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
3979 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3980 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
3981 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
3982 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
3983 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3984 this:</p>
3985
3986 <p><blockquote><pre>
3987 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3988   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3989 </pre></blockquote></p>
3990
3991 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
3992 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
3993
3994 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3995 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
3996 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3997 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3998 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
3999 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
4000 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
4001 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
4002 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
4003 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
4004 system.</p>
4005
4006 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
4007 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
4008 SMTorP. :)</p>
4009
4010       </div>
4011       <div class="tags">
4012
4013
4014         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4015
4016
4017       </div>
4018     </div>
4019     <div class="padding"></div>
4020
4021     <div class="entry">
4022       <div class="title">
4023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
4024       </div>
4025       <div class="date">
4026         22nd October 2014
4027       </div>
4028       <div class="body">
4029         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
4030 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
4031 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
4032 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
4033 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
4034 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
4035 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
4036 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
4037 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
4038 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
4039 lists I recently took over:</p>
4040
4041 <p><blockquote><pre>
4042 % time listadmin xiph
4043 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
4044 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
4045
4046 real    0m1.709s
4047 user    0m0.232s
4048 sys     0m0.012s
4049 %
4050 </pre></blockquote></p>
4051
4052 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
4053 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
4054 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
4055 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
4056 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
4057 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
4058 program.</p>
4059
4060 <p>If you install
4061 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
4062 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
4063 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
4064
4065 <p><blockquote><pre>
4066 username username@example.org
4067 spamlevel 23
4068 default discard
4069 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
4070
4071 password secret
4072 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
4073 mailman-list@lists.example.com
4074
4075 password hidden
4076 other-list@otherserver.example.org
4077 </pre></blockquote></p>
4078
4079 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
4080 learn the details.</p>
4081
4082 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
4083 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
4084 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
4085 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
4086
4087 <p><blockquote><pre>
4088 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
4089 </pre></blockquote></p>
4090
4091 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
4092 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
4093 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
4094 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
4095 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
4096 email.</p>
4097
4098 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
4099 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
4100 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
4101 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
4102 software.</p>
4103
4104 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4105 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4106 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4107
4108 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
4109 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
4110 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
4111 sure why.</p>
4112
4113       </div>
4114       <div class="tags">
4115
4116
4117         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4118
4119
4120       </div>
4121     </div>
4122     <div class="padding"></div>
4123
4124     <div class="entry">
4125       <div class="title">
4126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
4127       </div>
4128       <div class="date">
4129         17th October 2014
4130       </div>
4131       <div class="body">
4132         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
4133 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
4134 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
4135 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
4136 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
4137 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
4138 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
4139
4140 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
4141 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
4142 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
4143 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
4144 of this story.)</p>
4145
4146 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
4147 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
4148 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
4149 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
4150 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
4151 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
4152 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
4153 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
4154 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
4155 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
4156
4157 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
4158 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
4159 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
4160 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
4161
4162 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
4163 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
4164
4165 <p><blockquote><pre>
4166 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
4167 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
4168 </pre></blockquote></p>
4169
4170 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
4171 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
4172 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
4173 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
4174 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
4175 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
4176 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
4177 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
4178
4179 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
4180 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
4181
4182 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
4183 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
4184 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
4185 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
4186 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
4187
4188 <p><blockquote><pre>
4189 Task: isenkram-packages
4190 Section: hardware
4191 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4192  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4193  proposed.
4194 Test-new-install: show show
4195 Relevance: 8
4196 Packages: for-current-hardware
4197
4198 Task: isenkram-firmware
4199 Section: hardware
4200 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4201  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
4202  packages are proposed.
4203 Test-new-install: mark show
4204 Relevance: 8
4205 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
4206 </pre></blockquote></p>
4207
4208 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
4209 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
4210 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
4211 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
4212 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
4213
4214 <p><blockquote><pre>
4215 #!/bin/sh
4216 #
4217 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
4218 export PATH
4219 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4220 </pre></blockquote></p>
4221
4222 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
4223 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
4224
4225 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
4226 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
4227 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
4228 install.</p>
4229
4230 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
4231 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
4232 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
4233
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="tags">
4236
4237
4238         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
4239
4240
4241       </div>
4242     </div>
4243     <div class="padding"></div>
4244
4245     <div class="entry">
4246       <div class="title">
4247         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
4248       </div>
4249       <div class="date">
4250          4th October 2014
4251       </div>
4252       <div class="body">
4253         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
4254 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
4255 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
4256 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
4257
4258 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
4259
4260 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
4261 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
4262 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
4263
4264       </div>
4265       <div class="tags">
4266
4267
4268         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4269
4270
4271       </div>
4272     </div>
4273     <div class="padding"></div>
4274
4275     <div class="entry">
4276       <div class="title">
4277         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
4278       </div>
4279       <div class="date">
4280          4th October 2014
4281       </div>
4282       <div class="body">
4283         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
4284 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
4285 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
4286 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
4287 Dibb.</p>
4288
4289 <p>I just wrapped up
4290 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
4291 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
4292 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
4293 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
4294 0.17.</p>
4295
4296 <ul>
4297
4298  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
4299  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
4300    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
4301  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
4302  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
4303  <li>Fix include orders</li>
4304  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
4305  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
4306  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
4307    the palette size is the same.</li>
4308  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
4309  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
4310  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
4311  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
4312    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
4313
4314 </ul>
4315
4316 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
4317 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
4318 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
4319
4320       </div>
4321       <div class="tags">
4322
4323
4324         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4325
4326
4327       </div>
4328     </div>
4329     <div class="padding"></div>
4330
4331     <div class="entry">
4332       <div class="title">
4333         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
4334       </div>
4335       <div class="date">
4336         26th September 2014
4337       </div>
4338       <div class="body">
4339         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4340 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
4341 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
4342 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
4343 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
4344 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
4345 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
4346 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
4347 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
4348 future.  The
4349 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
4350 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
4351 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
4352 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
4353 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
4354
4355 <p>First, download the test ISO via
4356 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
4357 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
4358 or rsync (use
4359 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
4360 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
4361 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
4362 install with some tweaking.</p>
4363
4364 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
4365 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
4366
4367 <p><blockquote><pre>
4368 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
4369 </pre></blockquote></p>
4370
4371 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
4372 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
4373 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
4374 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
4375
4376 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
4377 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
4378 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
4379 your need.</p>
4380
4381 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
4382 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
4383 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
4384 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
4385 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
4386 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
4387 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
4388 days.</p>
4389
4390 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
4391 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
4392 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
4393 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
4394 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
4395 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
4396 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
4397 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
4398 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
4399
4400 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
4401 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
4402 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
4403
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="tags">
4406
4407
4408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4409
4410
4411       </div>
4412     </div>
4413     <div class="padding"></div>
4414
4415     <div class="entry">
4416       <div class="title">
4417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
4418       </div>
4419       <div class="date">
4420         25th September 2014
4421       </div>
4422       <div class="body">
4423         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
4424 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
4425 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
4426 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
4427 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
4428 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
4429 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
4430 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
4431 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
4432 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
4433 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
4434 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
4435 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
4436
4437 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
4438 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
4439 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
4440 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
4441 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
4442 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
4443 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
4444 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
4445 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
4446 list</a>. :)</p>
4447
4448       </div>
4449       <div class="tags">
4450
4451
4452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4453
4454
4455       </div>
4456     </div>
4457     <div class="padding"></div>
4458
4459     <div class="entry">
4460       <div class="title">
4461         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
4462       </div>
4463       <div class="date">
4464         16th September 2014
4465       </div>
4466       <div class="body">
4467         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
4468 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
4469 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
4470 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
4471 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
4472 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
4473 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
4474 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
4475 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
4476 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
4477 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
4478 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
4479 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
4480 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
4481
4482 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
4483 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
4484 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
4485 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
4486 depend on the small and clever package
4487 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
4488 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
4489 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
4490 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
4491 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
4492 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
4493 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
4494 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
4495 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
4496 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
4497 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
4498
4499 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
4500 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
4501 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
4502 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
4503 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
4504 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
4505 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
4506 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
4507 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
4508 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
4509 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
4510 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
4511 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
4512 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
4513 dialog.</p>
4514
4515 <p><table>
4516
4517 <tr>
4518 <th>Machine/setup</th>
4519 <th>Original tasksel</th>
4520 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
4521 <th>Reduction</th>
4522 </tr>
4523
4524 <tr>
4525 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
4526 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
4527 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
4528 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
4529 </tr>
4530
4531 <tr>
4532 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
4533 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
4534 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
4535 <td>23 min 40%</td>
4536 </tr>
4537
4538 <tr>
4539 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
4540 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
4541 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
4542 <td>11 min 50%</td>
4543 </tr>
4544
4545 <tr>
4546 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
4547 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
4548 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
4549 <td>2 min 33%</td>
4550 </tr>
4551
4552 <tr>
4553 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
4554 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
4555 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
4556 <td>4 min 21%</td>
4557 </tr>
4558
4559 </table></p>
4560
4561 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
4562 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
4563 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
4564 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
4565 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
4566 installed.</p>
4567
4568 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
4569 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
4570 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
4571 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
4572 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
4573 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
4574 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
4575 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
4576 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
4577 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
4578 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
4579 for the entire installation.</p>
4580
4581 <p>I've implemented this in the
4582 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
4583 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
4584 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
4585 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
4586 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
4587
4588 <p><blockquote><pre>
4589 #!/bin/sh
4590 set -e
4591 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4592 info() {
4593     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
4594 }
4595 error() {
4596     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
4597 }
4598 override_install() {
4599     apt-install eatmydata || true
4600     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
4601         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4602             file=/usr/bin/$bin
4603             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
4604             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
4605                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
4606                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
4607                     > /target$file.edu
4608                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
4609                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4610                     --rename --quiet --add $file
4611                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
4612             else
4613                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
4614             fi
4615         done
4616     else
4617         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
4618     fi
4619 }
4620
4621 override_install
4622 </pre></blockquote></p>
4623
4624 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
4625 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
4626
4627 <p><blockquote><pre>
4628 #! /bin/sh -e
4629 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4630 error() {
4631     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
4632 }
4633 remove_install_override() {
4634     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4635         file=/usr/bin/$bin
4636         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
4637             rm /target$file
4638             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4639                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
4640             rm /target$file.edu
4641         else
4642             error "Missing divert for $file."
4643         fi
4644     done
4645     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
4646 }
4647
4648 remove_install_override
4649 </pre></blockquote></p>
4650
4651 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
4652 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
4653 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
4654
4655 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
4656 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
4657 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
4658 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
4659 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
4660 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
4661 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
4662 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
4663 everyone.</p>
4664
4665 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
4666 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
4667 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
4668 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
4669
4670 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
4671 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
4672 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
4673 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
4674 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
4675
4676 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
4677 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
4678 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
4679 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
4680 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
4681
4682       </div>
4683       <div class="tags">
4684
4685
4686         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4687
4688
4689       </div>
4690     </div>
4691     <div class="padding"></div>
4692
4693     <div class="entry">
4694       <div class="title">
4695         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
4696       </div>
4697       <div class="date">
4698         10th September 2014
4699       </div>
4700       <div class="body">
4701         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
4702 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
4703 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
4704 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
4705 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
4706 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
4707 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
4708 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
4709 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
4710 those problems are gone now.</p>
4711
4712 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
4713 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
4714 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
4715 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
4716 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
4717
4718 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
4719 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
4720 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
4721
4722 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
4723 line:</p>
4724
4725 <p><blockquote><pre>
4726 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
4727 </pre></blockquote></p>
4728
4729 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
4730 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
4731 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
4732 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
4733
4734 <p><blockquote><pre>
4735 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
4736 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
4737 %
4738 </pre></blockquote></p>
4739
4740 <p>Now if only
4741 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
4742 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
4743 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
4744 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
4745 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
4746 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
4747 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
4748 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
4749 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
4750
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="tags">
4753
4754
4755         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4756
4757
4758       </div>
4759     </div>
4760     <div class="padding"></div>
4761
4762     <div class="entry">
4763       <div class="title">
4764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
4765       </div>
4766       <div class="date">
4767         17th June 2014
4768       </div>
4769       <div class="body">
4770         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4771 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
4772 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
4773 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
4774 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
4775
4776 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
4777 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
4778 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
4779 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
4780 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
4781 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
4782 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
4783 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
4784 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
4785 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
4786 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
4787 goals.</p>
4788
4789 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
4790 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
4791 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
4792 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
4793 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
4794 chapters together into one large web page (aka
4795 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
4796 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
4797 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
4798 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
4799 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
4800 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
4801 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
4802 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
4803 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
4804 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
4805 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
4806 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
4807 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
4808 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
4809 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
4810 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
4811 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
4812 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
4813
4814 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
4815 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
4816 track the English original.  For this we use the
4817 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
4818 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
4819 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
4820 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
4821 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
4822 files), which the translations update with the native language
4823 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
4824 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
4825 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
4826 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
4827 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
4828 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
4829 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
4830 of the documentation.</p>
4831
4832 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
4833 recommend using
4834 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
4835 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
4836 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
4837 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
4838 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
4839 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
4840 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
4841 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
4842
4843 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
4844 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
4845 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
4846 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
4847 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
4848 translated images by storing translated versions in
4849 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
4850 package maintainers know more.</p>
4851
4852 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
4853 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
4854 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
4855 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
4856 PDF version</a> or the
4857 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
4858 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
4859 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
4860
4861 <p>To learn more, check out
4862 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
4863 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
4864 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
4865 manual on the wiki</a> and
4866 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
4867 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
4868
4869       </div>
4870       <div class="tags">
4871
4872
4873         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4874
4875
4876       </div>
4877     </div>
4878     <div class="padding"></div>
4879
4880     <div class="entry">
4881       <div class="title">
4882         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
4883       </div>
4884       <div class="date">
4885         23rd April 2014
4886       </div>
4887       <div class="body">
4888         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
4889 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
4890 So I implemented one, using
4891 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
4892 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
4893 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
4894 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
4895 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
4896 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
4897
4898 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
4899 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
4900 packages to install.  The first part is in
4901 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
4902 this:</p>
4903
4904 <p><blockquote><pre>
4905 Task: isenkram
4906 Section: hardware
4907 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4908  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4909  proposed.
4910 Test-new-install: mark show
4911 Relevance: 8
4912 Packages: for-current-hardware
4913 </pre></blockquote></p>
4914
4915 <p>The second part is in
4916 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
4917 this:</p>
4918
4919 <p><blockquote><pre>
4920 #!/bin/sh
4921 #
4922 (
4923     isenkram-lookup
4924     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4925 ) | sort -u
4926 </pre></blockquote></p>
4927
4928 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
4929 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
4930 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
4931 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
4932 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
4933 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
4934
4935 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
4936 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
4937 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
4938 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
4939 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
4940 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
4941 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
4942 the python-apt code (bug
4943 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
4944 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
4945 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4946 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
4947 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
4948 unstable today.</p>
4949
4950 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4951 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4952 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
4953 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4954 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
4955 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4956 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
4957 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4958 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
4959
4960 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4961 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4962 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4963 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4964 package.  See also
4965 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4966 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
4967 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4968 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
4969
4970       </div>
4971       <div class="tags">
4972
4973
4974         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4975
4976
4977       </div>
4978     </div>
4979     <div class="padding"></div>
4980
4981     <div class="entry">
4982       <div class="title">
4983         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
4984       </div>
4985       <div class="date">
4986         15th April 2014
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="body">
4989         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4990 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4991 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4992 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4993 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
4994 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
4995
4996 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4997 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
4998 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4999 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
5000 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
5001 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
5002 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
5003
5004 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
5005 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
5006 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
5007 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
5008 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
5009 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
5010 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
5011 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
5012 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
5013 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
5014 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
5015 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
5016
5017 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
5018 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
5019 become root:</p>
5020
5021 <p><pre>
5022 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5023   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5024   u-boot-tools
5025 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5026   freedom-maker
5027 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5028 </pre></p>
5029
5030 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5031 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
5032 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
5033 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
5034 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
5035 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
5036 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
5037 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
5038
5039 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5040 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5041 the preseed values:</p>
5042
5043 <p><pre>
5044 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
5045 </pre></p>
5046
5047 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
5048 it still work.</p>
5049
5050 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
5051 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
5052 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
5053 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
5054 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
5055 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
5056 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
5057
5058 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5059 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5060 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5061 irc.debian.org)</a> and
5062 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5063 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5064
5065       </div>
5066       <div class="tags">
5067
5068
5069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5070
5071
5072       </div>
5073     </div>
5074     <div class="padding"></div>
5075
5076     <div class="entry">
5077       <div class="title">
5078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
5079       </div>
5080       <div class="date">
5081          9th April 2014
5082       </div>
5083       <div class="body">
5084         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
5085 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
5086 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
5087 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
5088 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
5089 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
5090 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
5091 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
5092 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
5093 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
5094 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
5095 have looked at a system called
5096 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
5097 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
5098
5099 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
5100 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
5101 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
5102 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
5103 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
5104 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
5105 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
5106 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
5107 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
5108 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
5109 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
5110 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
5111 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
5112
5113 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
5114 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
5115 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
5116 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
5117 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
5118 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
5119 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
5120 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
5121 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
5122 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
5123 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
5124 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
5125 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
5126 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
5127 account.</p>
5128
5129 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
5130 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
5131 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
5132 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
5133 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
5134 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
5135 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
5136
5137 <p><blockquote><pre>
5138 [s3c]
5139 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
5140 backend-login: API-login
5141 backend-password: API-password
5142 fs-passphrase: local-password
5143 </pre></blockquote></p>
5144
5145 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
5146 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
5147 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
5148 details and password to create it:</p>
5149
5150 <p><blockquote><pre>
5151 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
5152 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5153   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
5154 Enter backend login:
5155 Enter backend password:
5156 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
5157 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
5158 Enter encryption password:
5159 Confirm encryption password:
5160 Generating random encryption key...
5161 Creating metadata tables...
5162 Dumping metadata...
5163 ..objects..
5164 ..blocks..
5165 ..inodes..
5166 ..inode_blocks..
5167 ..symlink_targets..
5168 ..names..
5169 ..contents..
5170 ..ext_attributes..
5171 Compressing and uploading metadata...
5172 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
5173 # </pre></blockquote></p>
5174
5175 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
5176
5177 <p><blockquote><pre>
5178 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5179   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
5180 Using 4 upload threads.
5181 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
5182 Reading metadata...
5183 ..objects..
5184 ..blocks..
5185 ..inodes..
5186 ..inode_blocks..
5187 ..symlink_targets..
5188 ..names..
5189 ..contents..
5190 ..ext_attributes..
5191 Mounting filesystem...
5192 # df -h /s3ql
5193 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
5194 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
5195 #
5196 </pre></blockquote></p>
5197
5198 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
5199 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
5200 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
5201 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
5202 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
5203 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
5204
5205 <p><blockquote><pre>
5206 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
5207 #
5208 </pre></blockquote></p>
5209
5210 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
5211 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
5212 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
5213 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
5214 file system:</p>
5215
5216 <p><blockquote><pre>
5217 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
5218 Using cached metadata.
5219 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
5220 Checking DB integrity...
5221 Creating temporary extra indices...
5222 Checking lost+found...
5223 Checking cached objects...
5224 Checking names (refcounts)...
5225 Checking contents (names)...
5226 Checking contents (inodes)...
5227 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
5228 Checking objects (reference counts)...
5229 Checking objects (backend)...
5230 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
5231 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
5232 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
5233 Checking objects (sizes)...
5234 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
5235 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
5236 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
5237 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
5238 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
5239 Checking inodes (sizes)...
5240 Checking extended attributes (names)...
5241 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
5242 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
5243 Checking directory reachability...
5244 Checking unix conventions...
5245 Checking referential integrity...
5246 Dropping temporary indices...
5247 Backing up old metadata...
5248 Dumping metadata...
5249 ..objects..
5250 ..blocks..
5251 ..inodes..
5252 ..inode_blocks..
5253 ..symlink_targets..
5254 ..names..
5255 ..contents..
5256 ..ext_attributes..
5257 Compressing and uploading metadata...
5258 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
5259 #
5260 </pre></blockquote></p>
5261
5262 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
5263 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
5264 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
5265 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
5266 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
5267 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
5268 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
5269 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
5270 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
5271 working set.</p>
5272
5273 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
5274 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
5275 busy:</p>
5276
5277 <p><blockquote><pre>
5278 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5279   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
5280 Using 8 upload threads.
5281 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
5282 #
5283 </pre></blockquote></p>
5284
5285 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
5286 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
5287 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
5288 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
5289 s3qlctrl:
5290
5291 <p><blockquote><pre>
5292 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
5293 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
5294 #
5295 </pre></blockquote></p>
5296
5297 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
5298 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
5299 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
5300 a report:</p>
5301
5302 <p><blockquote><pre>
5303 # s3qlstat /s3ql
5304 Directory entries:    9141
5305 Inodes:               9143
5306 Data blocks:          8851
5307 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
5308 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
5309 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
5310 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
5311 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
5312 #
5313 </pre></blockquote></p>
5314
5315 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
5316 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
5317 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
5318 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
5319 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
5320 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
5321 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
5322 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
5323 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
5324 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
5325 best.</p>
5326
5327 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
5328 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
5329 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
5330 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
5331 poster is titled
5332 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
5333 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
5334 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
5335 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
5336 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
5337
5338 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
5339 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
5340 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
5341 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
5342 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
5343 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
5344 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
5345 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
5346
5347 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
5348 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
5349 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
5350 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
5351 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
5352 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
5353 only read from it.</p>
5354
5355 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5356 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5357 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5358
5359       </div>
5360       <div class="tags">
5361
5362
5363         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5364
5365
5366       </div>
5367     </div>
5368     <div class="padding"></div>
5369
5370     <div class="entry">
5371       <div class="title">
5372         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
5373       </div>
5374       <div class="date">
5375         14th March 2014
5376       </div>
5377       <div class="body">
5378         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
5379 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
5380 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
5381 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
5382 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
5383 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
5384 release (0.2).</p>
5385
5386 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
5387 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
5388 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
5389 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
5390 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
5391 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
5392 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
5393 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
5394 and build using
5395 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
5396 with a user with sudo access to become root:
5397
5398 <pre>
5399 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5400   freedom-maker
5401 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5402   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5403   u-boot-tools
5404 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5405 </pre>
5406
5407 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5408 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
5409 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
5410 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
5411 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
5412 kpartx call.</p>
5413
5414 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5415 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5416 the preseed values:</p>
5417
5418 <pre>
5419 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
5420 </pre>
5421
5422 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
5423 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
5424 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
5425 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
5426 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
5427 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
5428
5429 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5430 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5431 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5432 irc.debian.org)</a> and
5433 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5434 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5435
5436       </div>
5437       <div class="tags">
5438
5439
5440         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5441
5442
5443       </div>
5444     </div>
5445     <div class="padding"></div>
5446
5447     <div class="entry">
5448       <div class="title">
5449         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
5450       </div>
5451       <div class="date">
5452         22nd February 2014
5453       </div>
5454       <div class="body">
5455         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
5456 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
5457 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
5458 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
5459 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
5460 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
5461 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
5462 proper home since then.</p>
5463
5464 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
5465 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
5466 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
5467 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
5468 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
5469
5470 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
5471 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
5472 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
5473 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
5474 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
5475 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
5476 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
5477 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
5478 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
5479
5480       </div>
5481       <div class="tags">
5482
5483
5484         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5485
5486
5487       </div>
5488     </div>
5489     <div class="padding"></div>
5490
5491     <div class="entry">
5492       <div class="title">
5493         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
5494       </div>
5495       <div class="date">
5496          3rd February 2014
5497       </div>
5498       <div class="body">
5499         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
5500 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
5501 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
5502 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
5503 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
5504 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
5505 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
5506 <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>,
5507 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
5508
5509 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
5510 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
5511 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
5512 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
5513 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
5514 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
5515
5516 <p><blockquote><pre>
5517 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
5518 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
5519 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
5520 dhclient /dev/eth0
5521 </pre></blockquote></p>
5522
5523 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
5524 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
5525 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
5526
5527 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
5528 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
5529 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
5530 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
5531 side.</p>
5532
5533 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
5534 stuff:</p>
5535
5536 <p><blockquote><pre>
5537 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5538 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
5539 EOF
5540 apt-get update
5541 apt-get dist-upgrade
5542 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
5543     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
5544 update-alternatives --config runsystem
5545 </pre></blockquote></p>
5546
5547 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
5548 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
5549 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
5550 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
5551 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
5552 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
5553 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
5554 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
5555 ssh instead.
5556
5557 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
5558 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
5559 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
5560 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
5561 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
5562 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
5563
5564 <p><blockquote><pre>
5565 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5566 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
5567 EOF
5568 </pre></blockquote></p>
5569
5570 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
5571 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
5572 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
5573 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
5574
5575 <p><blockquote><pre>
5576 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
5577 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
5578 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
5579 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
5580 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
5581 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
5582 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
5583 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
5584 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
5585 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
5586 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
5587 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
5588 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
5589 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
5590 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
5591 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
5592 #
5593 </pre></blockquote></p>
5594
5595 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
5596 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
5597 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
5598 command line stuff.<p>
5599
5600       </div>
5601       <div class="tags">
5602
5603
5604         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5605
5606
5607       </div>
5608     </div>
5609     <div class="padding"></div>
5610
5611     <div class="entry">
5612       <div class="title">
5613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
5614       </div>
5615       <div class="date">
5616         14th January 2014
5617       </div>
5618       <div class="body">
5619         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
5620 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
5621 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
5622 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
5623 the source.  The company behind it provide
5624 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
5625 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
5626 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
5627 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
5628 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
5629 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
5630 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
5631 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
5632 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
5633 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
5634 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
5635 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
5636 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
5637 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
5638 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
5639 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
5640 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
5641 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
5642 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
5643
5644 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
5645
5646 <ul>
5647
5648   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
5649   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
5650   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
5651
5652 </ul>
5653
5654 <p>You can
5655 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5656 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
5657 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
5658 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5659 include a test suite check.</p>
5660
5661       </div>
5662       <div class="tags">
5663
5664
5665         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5666
5667
5668       </div>
5669     </div>
5670     <div class="padding"></div>
5671
5672     <div class="entry">
5673       <div class="title">
5674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
5675       </div>
5676       <div class="date">
5677         24th November 2013
5678       </div>
5679       <div class="body">
5680         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
5681 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
5682 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
5683 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
5684 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
5685 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
5686 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
5687 is working on.  I checked the
5688 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
5689 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
5690 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
5691 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
5692 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
5693 These are the release notes:</p>
5694
5695 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
5696
5697 <ul>
5698
5699   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
5700    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
5701    up.</li>
5702
5703   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
5704
5705   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
5706    Matthias Klose.</li>
5707
5708   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
5709    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
5710
5711   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
5712    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
5713    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
5714
5715 </ul>
5716
5717 <p>You can
5718 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5719 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
5720 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
5721 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5722 include a testsuite check.</p>
5723
5724       </div>
5725       <div class="tags">
5726
5727
5728         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5729
5730
5731       </div>
5732     </div>
5733     <div class="padding"></div>
5734
5735     <div class="entry">
5736       <div class="title">
5737         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
5738       </div>
5739       <div class="date">
5740          2nd November 2013
5741       </div>
5742       <div class="body">
5743         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
5744 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
5745 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
5746 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
5747 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
5748
5749 <p><pre>
5750 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
5751 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
5752 # Provides:          rsyslog
5753 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
5754 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
5755 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
5756 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
5757 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
5758 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
5759 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
5760 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
5761 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
5762 ### END INIT INFO
5763 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
5764 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
5765 </pre></p>
5766
5767 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
5768 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
5769 info/comments.</p>
5770
5771 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
5772 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
5773
5774 <p><pre>
5775 #!/bin/sh
5776
5777 # Define LSB log_* functions.
5778 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
5779 # and status_of_proc is working.
5780 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
5781
5782 #
5783 # Function that starts the daemon/service
5784
5785 #
5786 do_start()
5787 {
5788         # Return
5789         #   0 if daemon has been started
5790         #   1 if daemon was already running
5791         #   2 if daemon could not be started
5792         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
5793                 || return 1
5794         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
5795                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
5796                 || return 2
5797         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
5798         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
5799         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
5800 }
5801
5802 #
5803 # Function that stops the daemon/service
5804 #
5805 do_stop()
5806 {
5807         # Return
5808         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
5809         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
5810         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
5811         #   other if a failure occurred
5812         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5813         RETVAL="$?"
5814         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
5815         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
5816         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
5817         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
5818         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
5819         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
5820         # sleep for some time.
5821         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
5822         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
5823         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
5824         rm -f $PIDFILE
5825         return "$RETVAL"
5826 }
5827
5828 #
5829 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
5830 #
5831 do_reload() {
5832         #
5833         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
5834         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
5835         # then implement that here.
5836         #
5837         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5838         return 0
5839 }
5840
5841 SCRIPTNAME=$1
5842 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
5843 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
5844 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
5845     script="$1"
5846     shift
5847     . $script
5848 else
5849     exit 0
5850 fi
5851
5852 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
5853 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
5854
5855 # Exit if the package is not installed
5856 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
5857
5858 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
5859 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
5860
5861 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
5862 . /lib/init/vars.sh
5863
5864 case "$1" in
5865   start)
5866         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
5867         do_start
5868         case "$?" in
5869                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
5870                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
5871         esac
5872         ;;
5873   stop)
5874         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
5875         do_stop
5876         case "$?" in
5877                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
5878                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
5879         esac
5880         ;;
5881   status)
5882         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
5883         ;;
5884   #reload|force-reload)
5885         #
5886         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
5887         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
5888         #
5889         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
5890         #do_reload
5891         #log_end_msg $?
5892         #;;
5893   restart|force-reload)
5894         #
5895         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
5896         # 'force-reload' alias
5897         #
5898         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
5899         do_stop
5900         case "$?" in
5901           0|1)
5902                 do_start
5903                 case "$?" in
5904                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
5905                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
5906                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
5907                 esac
5908                 ;;
5909           *)
5910                 # Failed to stop
5911                 log_end_msg 1
5912                 ;;
5913         esac
5914         ;;
5915   *)
5916         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
5917         exit 3
5918         ;;
5919 esac
5920
5921 :
5922 </pre></p>
5923
5924 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
5925 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
5926 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
5927 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
5928
5929 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
5930 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
5931 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
5932 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
5933 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
5934
5935       </div>
5936       <div class="tags">
5937
5938
5939         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5940
5941
5942       </div>
5943     </div>
5944     <div class="padding"></div>
5945
5946     <div class="entry">
5947       <div class="title">
5948         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
5949       </div>
5950       <div class="date">
5951          1st November 2013
5952       </div>
5953       <div class="body">
5954         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
5955 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
5956 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
5957 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
5958 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
5959 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
5960 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
5961 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
5962 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
5963 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
5964 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
5965 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
5966
5967 <p>The source is now available from
5968 <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>
5969
5970       </div>
5971       <div class="tags">
5972
5973
5974         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5975
5976
5977       </div>
5978     </div>
5979     <div class="padding"></div>
5980
5981     <div class="entry">
5982       <div class="title">
5983         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
5984       </div>
5985       <div class="date">
5986         27th October 2013
5987       </div>
5988       <div class="body">
5989         <p>The
5990 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
5991 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
5992 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
5993 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
5994 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
5995 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
5996 of a plan to simplify the build system for
5997 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
5998 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
5999 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
6000 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
6001 Raspberry Pi.</p>
6002
6003 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
6004 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
6005 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
6006 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
6007 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
6008 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
6009 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
6010 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
6011 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
6012 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
6013 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
6014 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
6015 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
6016 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
6017 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
6018 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
6019 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
6020 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
6021 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
6022 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
6023 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
6024 available from
6025 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
6026 upstream project page</a>.</p>
6027
6028 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
6029 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
6030 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
6031 list:</p>
6032
6033 <p><pre>
6034 #!/bin/sh
6035 set -e # Exit on first error
6036 rootdir="$1"
6037 cd "$rootdir"
6038 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
6039 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
6040 EOF
6041 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
6042 # install a kernel somewhere too.
6043 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
6044     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6045 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
6046 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
6047 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
6048 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
6049 </pre></p>
6050
6051 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
6052 to build the image:</p>
6053
6054 <pre>
6055 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
6056     --variant minbase \
6057     --arch armel \
6058     --distribution jessie \
6059     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
6060     --image test.img \
6061     --size 600M \
6062     --bootsize 64M \
6063     --boottype vfat \
6064     --log-level debug \
6065     --verbose \
6066     --no-kernel \
6067     --no-extlinux \
6068     --root-password raspberry \
6069     --hostname raspberrypi \
6070     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
6071     --customize `pwd`/customize \
6072     --package netbase \
6073     --package git-core \
6074     --package binutils \
6075     --package ca-certificates \
6076     --package wget \
6077     --package kmod
6078 </pre></p>
6079
6080 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
6081 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
6082 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
6083 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
6084 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
6085 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
6086 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
6087
6088 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
6089 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
6090 build dependency list.</p>
6091
6092 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
6093 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
6094 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
6095 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
6096
6097       </div>
6098       <div class="tags">
6099
6100
6101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
6102
6103
6104       </div>
6105     </div>
6106     <div class="padding"></div>
6107
6108     <div class="entry">
6109       <div class="title">
6110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
6111       </div>
6112       <div class="date">
6113         15th October 2013
6114       </div>
6115       <div class="body">
6116         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
6117 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
6118 these. :)</p>
6119
6120 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
6121 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
6122 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
6123 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
6124 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
6125 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
6126 hope you will to. :)</p>
6127
6128 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
6129 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
6130 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
6131 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
6132 donated.  Are you next?</p>
6133
6134 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
6135 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
6136 statement under the heading
6137 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
6138 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
6139 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
6140 too.</p>
6141
6142       </div>
6143       <div class="tags">
6144
6145
6146         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6147
6148
6149       </div>
6150     </div>
6151     <div class="padding"></div>
6152
6153     <div class="entry">
6154       <div class="title">
6155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
6156       </div>
6157       <div class="date">
6158         27th September 2013
6159       </div>
6160       <div class="body">
6161         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
6162 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
6163 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
6164 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
6165
6166 <ul>
6167
6168 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
6169 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
6170
6171 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
6172 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
6173
6174 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
6175 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
6176 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
6177 (Youtube)</li>
6178
6179 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
6180 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
6181
6182 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
6183 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
6184
6185 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
6186 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
6187 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
6188
6189 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
6190 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
6191 (Youtube)</li>
6192
6193 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
6194 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
6195
6196 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
6197 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
6198
6199 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
6200 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
6201 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
6202
6203 </ul>
6204
6205 <p>A larger list is available from
6206 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
6207 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
6208
6209 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
6210 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
6211 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
6212 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
6213 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
6214 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
6215 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
6216 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
6217 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
6218 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
6219 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
6220
6221       </div>
6222       <div class="tags">
6223
6224
6225         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
6226
6227
6228       </div>
6229     </div>
6230     <div class="padding"></div>
6231
6232     <div class="entry">
6233       <div class="title">
6234         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
6235       </div>
6236       <div class="date">
6237         10th September 2013
6238       </div>
6239       <div class="body">
6240         <p>I was introduced to the
6241 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
6242 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
6243 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
6244 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
6245 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
6246 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
6247 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
6248 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
6249
6250 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
6251 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
6252 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
6253 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
6254 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
6255
6256 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
6257 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
6258 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
6259 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
6260 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
6261 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
6262 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
6263 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
6264 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
6265 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
6266 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
6267 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
6268 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
6269 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
6270 missing in Debian).</p>
6271
6272 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
6273 scripts
6274 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
6275 and a administrative web interface
6276 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
6277 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
6278 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
6279 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
6280 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
6281 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
6282 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
6283 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
6284 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
6285 this is really working yet, see
6286 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
6287 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
6288 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
6289 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
6290 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
6291 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
6292 with lots of half baked features.</p>
6293
6294 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
6295 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
6296 at.</p>
6297
6298 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
6299
6300 <ol>
6301
6302 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
6303 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
6304 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
6305 to the Debian installer:<p>
6306 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
6307
6308 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
6309 install on.</li>
6310
6311 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
6312 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
6313
6314 </ol>
6315
6316 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
6317
6318 <ol>
6319
6320 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
6321 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
6322 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
6323 <pre>
6324 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
6325 </pre></li>
6326 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
6327 <pre>
6328 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
6329    apt-key add -
6330 apt-get update
6331 apt-get install freedombox-setup
6332 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
6333 </pre></li>
6334 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
6335
6336 </ol>
6337
6338 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
6339 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
6340 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
6341 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
6342 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
6343
6344 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
6345 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
6346 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
6347 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
6348
6349 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
6350 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
6351 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
6352 irc.debian.org and the
6353 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
6354 mailing list</a>.</p>
6355
6356 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
6357 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
6358 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
6359 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
6360 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
6361 default password is 'secret'.</p>
6362
6363       </div>
6364       <div class="tags">
6365
6366
6367         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
6368
6369
6370       </div>
6371     </div>
6372     <div class="padding"></div>
6373
6374     <div class="entry">
6375       <div class="title">
6376         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
6377       </div>
6378       <div class="date">
6379         18th August 2013
6380       </div>
6381       <div class="body">
6382         <p>Earlier, I reported about
6383 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
6384 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
6385 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
6386 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
6387 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
6388 currently on the disk.</p>
6389
6390 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
6391 <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>
6392 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
6393 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
6394 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
6395 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
6396 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
6397 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
6398 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
6399 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
6400 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
6401 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
6402 the broken disks.</p>
6403
6404       </div>
6405       <div class="tags">
6406
6407
6408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6409
6410
6411       </div>
6412     </div>
6413     <div class="padding"></div>
6414
6415     <div class="entry">
6416       <div class="title">
6417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
6418       </div>
6419       <div class="date">
6420         17th July 2013
6421       </div>
6422       <div class="body">
6423         <p>Today I switched to
6424 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
6425 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
6426 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
6427 <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
6428 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
6429 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
6430 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
6431 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
6432 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
6433 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
6434 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
6435 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
6436 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
6437 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
6438 station from now on.</p>
6439
6440 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
6441 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
6442 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
6443 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
6444 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
6445 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
6446 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
6447 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
6448 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
6449 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
6450 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
6451 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
6452
6453 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
6454 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
6455 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
6456 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
6457 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
6458 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
6459 parameters are tuned:</p>
6460
6461 <ul>
6462
6463 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
6464     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
6465
6466 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
6467     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
6468     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
6469
6470 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
6471     systems.</li>
6472
6473 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
6474     /etc/fstab.</li>
6475
6476 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
6477
6478 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
6479     cron.daily).</li>
6480
6481 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
6482     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
6483
6484 </ul>
6485
6486 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
6487 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
6488 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
6489 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
6490 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
6491 from getting the data on the disk (see
6492 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
6493 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
6494 right thing to do.</p>
6495
6496 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
6497 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
6498 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
6499
6500 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
6501 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
6502 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
6503 instead of during my work.</p>
6504
6505 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
6506 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
6507
6508 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
6509 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
6510 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
6511
6512 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
6513 there.</p>
6514
6515 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
6516 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
6517 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
6518 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
6519 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
6520 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
6521 back.</p>
6522
6523       </div>
6524       <div class="tags">
6525
6526
6527         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6528
6529
6530       </div>
6531     </div>
6532     <div class="padding"></div>
6533
6534     <div class="entry">
6535       <div class="title">
6536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
6537       </div>
6538       <div class="date">
6539         10th July 2013
6540       </div>
6541       <div class="body">
6542         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
6543 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
6544 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
6545 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
6546 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
6547 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
6548 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
6549 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
6550
6551 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
6552 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
6553 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
6554 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
6555 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
6556 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
6557 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
6558 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
6559 lock up when I download a new
6560 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
6561 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
6562 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
6563
6564 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6565 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
6566 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6567 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
6568 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
6569 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
6570
6571 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6572 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
6573 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6574 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
6575 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
6576 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
6577
6578 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
6579 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
6580 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
6581 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
6582 exist).</p>
6583
6584       </div>
6585       <div class="tags">
6586
6587
6588         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6589
6590
6591       </div>
6592     </div>
6593     <div class="padding"></div>
6594
6595     <div class="entry">
6596       <div class="title">
6597         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
6598       </div>
6599       <div class="date">
6600          9th July 2013
6601       </div>
6602       <div class="body">
6603         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
6604 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
6605 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
6606 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
6607 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6608 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
6609 Bitraf</a>.</p>
6610
6611 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
6612 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
6613 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
6614 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
6615 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
6616
6617       </div>
6618       <div class="tags">
6619
6620
6621         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6622
6623
6624       </div>
6625     </div>
6626     <div class="padding"></div>
6627
6628     <div class="entry">
6629       <div class="title">
6630         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
6631       </div>
6632       <div class="date">
6633          5th July 2013
6634       </div>
6635       <div class="body">
6636         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
6637 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
6638 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
6639 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
6640 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
6641 ended up picking a
6642 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
6643 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
6644 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
6645 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
6646 on that below.</p>
6647
6648 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6649 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6650 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
6651 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
6652 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6653 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
6654 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
6655 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
6656 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
6657
6658 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
6659 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
6660 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
6661 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
6662 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
6663 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
6664 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
6665
6666 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
6667 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
6668
6669 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
6670 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
6671 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
6672 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
6673 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
6674 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
6675 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
6676 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
6677 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
6678 kernel developers as
6679 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
6680 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
6681 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
6682 Lenovo forums, both for
6683 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
6684 2012-11-10</a> and for
6685 <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
6686 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
6687 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
6688 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
6689 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
6690 There is even a
6691 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
6692 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
6693 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
6694
6695 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
6696 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
6697 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
6698 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
6699 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
6700 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
6701 fixed. :)</p>
6702
6703       </div>
6704       <div class="tags">
6705
6706
6707         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6708
6709
6710       </div>
6711     </div>
6712     <div class="padding"></div>
6713
6714     <div class="entry">
6715       <div class="title">
6716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
6717       </div>
6718       <div class="date">
6719          4th July 2013
6720       </div>
6721       <div class="body">
6722         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
6723 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
6724 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
6725 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
6726 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
6727 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
6728 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
6729 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
6730 with an expencive door stop.</p>
6731
6732 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6733 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6734 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
6735 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
6736 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6737 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
6738 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
6739
6740 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
6741 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
6742 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
6743 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
6744 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
6745 new laptop now. :)</p>
6746
6747 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
6748
6749       </div>
6750       <div class="tags">
6751
6752
6753         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6754
6755
6756       </div>
6757     </div>
6758     <div class="padding"></div>
6759
6760     <div class="entry">
6761       <div class="title">
6762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
6763       </div>
6764       <div class="date">
6765         25th June 2013
6766       </div>
6767       <div class="body">
6768         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
6769 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
6770 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
6771 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
6772 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
6773 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
6774 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
6775 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
6776 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
6777 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
6778 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
6779
6780 <p><pre>
6781 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6782 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
6783 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
6784 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
6785 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
6786 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
6787 firmware-ipw2x00
6788 firmware-ipw2x00
6789 Preconfiguring packages ...
6790 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
6791 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
6792 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
6793 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
6794 #
6795 </pre></p>
6796
6797 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
6798 printed instead:</p>
6799
6800 <p><pre>
6801 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6802 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
6803 #
6804 </pre></p>
6805
6806 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
6807 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
6808
6809 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
6810 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
6811 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
6812 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
6813 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
6814 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
6815 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
6816 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
6817 machine.</p>
6818
6819 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
6820 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
6821 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
6822 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
6823 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
6824 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
6825
6826       </div>
6827       <div class="tags">
6828
6829
6830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6831
6832
6833       </div>
6834     </div>
6835     <div class="padding"></div>
6836
6837     <div class="entry">
6838       <div class="title">
6839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
6840       </div>
6841       <div class="date">
6842         11th June 2013
6843       </div>
6844       <div class="body">
6845         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6846 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6847 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
6848 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
6849 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6850 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
6851 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6852 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
6853 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6854 i915 driver used by the
6855 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6856 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
6857
6858 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
6859 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6860 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
6861 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6862 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
6863
6864 <pre>
6865 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6866 update-initramfs -u -k all
6867 </pre>
6868
6869 <p>Since March 2012 there is
6870 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6871 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6872 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6873 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
6874 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6875 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
6876 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
6877 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6878 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6879 number.</p>
6880
6881 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6882 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6883
6884 <p><pre>
6885 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6886     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6887     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6888  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6889  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6890     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6891  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6892     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6893  Latency: 0
6894  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6895  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6896  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6897  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6898  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6899  Capabilities: <access denied>
6900  Kernel driver in use: i915
6901 </pre></p>
6902
6903 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6904
6905 <p><pre>
6906 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6907        ...
6908         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6909         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6910        ...
6911 }
6912 </pre></p>
6913
6914 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6915 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6916 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6917 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
6918 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6919 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6920 yet shown up in
6921 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
6922 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6923 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6924 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6925 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6926 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6927
6928 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6929 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
6930 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
6931 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6932 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
6933 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6934 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6935 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6936 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6937 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6938 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6939 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6940
6941 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6942 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6943 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6944 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6945 backlight.</p>
6946
6947       </div>
6948       <div class="tags">
6949
6950
6951         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6952
6953
6954       </div>
6955     </div>
6956     <div class="padding"></div>
6957
6958     <div class="entry">
6959       <div class="title">
6960         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
6961       </div>
6962       <div class="date">
6963         27th May 2013
6964       </div>
6965       <div class="body">
6966         <p>Two days ago, I asked
6967 <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
6968 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6969 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
6970 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6971 and Windows 8.</p>
6972
6973 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6974 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6975 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6976 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6977 enough to tell.</p>
6978
6979 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6980 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
6981 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6982 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
6983 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6984 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
6985 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6986 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6987 to follow.</p>
6988
6989 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6990 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6991 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6992 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
6993 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6994 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6995 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
6996 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
6997
6998 <p>I've updated the
6999 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
7000 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
7001 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
7002 machine.</p>
7003
7004 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
7005 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
7006
7007       </div>
7008       <div class="tags">
7009
7010
7011         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7012
7013
7014       </div>
7015     </div>
7016     <div class="padding"></div>
7017
7018     <div class="entry">
7019       <div class="title">
7020         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
7021       </div>
7022       <div class="date">
7023         25th May 2013
7024       </div>
7025       <div class="body">
7026         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
7027 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
7028 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
7029 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
7030 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
7031 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
7032
7033 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
7034 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
7035 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
7036 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
7037 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
7038 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
7039 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
7040 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
7041 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
7042 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
7043
7044 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
7045 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
7046 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
7047 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
7048 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
7049 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
7050
7051 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
7052 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
7053 on new Laptops?</p>
7054
7055       </div>
7056       <div class="tags">
7057
7058
7059         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7060
7061
7062       </div>
7063     </div>
7064     <div class="padding"></div>
7065
7066     <div class="entry">
7067       <div class="title">
7068         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
7069       </div>
7070       <div class="date">
7071         17th May 2013
7072       </div>
7073       <div class="body">
7074         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
7075 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
7076 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
7077 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
7078 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
7079 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
7080 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
7081 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
7082 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
7083 donate some money</a>.
7084
7085 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
7086 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
7087 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
7088 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
7089 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
7090
7091 <p>The script,
7092 <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/>
7093 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
7094 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
7095 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
7096
7097 <ol>
7098
7099 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
7100 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
7101 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
7102     our configuration.</li>
7103 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
7104     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
7105     according to the profile specified in the config above,
7106     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
7107 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
7108     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
7109 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
7110
7111 </ol>
7112
7113 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
7114 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
7115 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
7116 the needed packages.</p>
7117
7118 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
7119 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
7120 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
7121 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
7122 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
7123 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
7124
7125 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
7126 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
7127 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
7128
7129 <p><pre>
7130 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
7131 DESKTOP="lxde"
7132 </pre></p>
7133
7134 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
7135 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
7136 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
7137 boot.</p>
7138
7139       </div>
7140       <div class="tags">
7141
7142
7143         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7144
7145
7146       </div>
7147     </div>
7148     <div class="padding"></div>
7149
7150     <div class="entry">
7151       <div class="title">
7152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
7153       </div>
7154       <div class="date">
7155         11th May 2013
7156       </div>
7157       <div class="body">
7158         <P>In January,
7159 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
7160 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
7161 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
7162 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
7163 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
7164 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
7165 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
7166 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
7167 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
7168 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
7169 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
7170 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
7171
7172 <p><table>
7173 <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>
7174 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
7175 <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>
7176 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
7177 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
7178 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
7179 <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>
7180 <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>
7181 <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>
7182 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
7183 </table></p>
7184
7185 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
7186 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
7187 available in experimental.</p>
7188
7189 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
7190 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
7191 for LEGO designers.</p>
7192
7193       </div>
7194       <div class="tags">
7195
7196
7197         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
7198
7199
7200       </div>
7201     </div>
7202     <div class="padding"></div>
7203
7204     <div class="entry">
7205       <div class="title">
7206         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
7207       </div>
7208       <div class="date">
7209          5th May 2013
7210       </div>
7211       <div class="body">
7212         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
7213 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
7214 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
7215 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
7216 soon.</p>
7217
7218 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
7219 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
7220 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
7221 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
7222 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
7223 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
7224 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
7225 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
7226 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
7227 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
7228 Edu.</a>
7229
7230 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
7231 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
7232 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
7233 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
7234 follow.<p>
7235
7236       </div>
7237       <div class="tags">
7238
7239
7240         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7241
7242
7243       </div>
7244     </div>
7245     <div class="padding"></div>
7246
7247     <div class="entry">
7248       <div class="title">
7249         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
7250       </div>
7251       <div class="date">
7252          3rd April 2013
7253       </div>
7254       <div class="body">
7255         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
7256 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
7257 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
7258 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
7259
7260 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
7261 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
7262 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
7263 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
7264 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
7265 BTS. :)</p>
7266
7267       </div>
7268       <div class="tags">
7269
7270
7271         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7272
7273
7274       </div>
7275     </div>
7276     <div class="padding"></div>
7277
7278     <div class="entry">
7279       <div class="title">
7280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
7281       </div>
7282       <div class="date">
7283          2nd February 2013
7284       </div>
7285       <div class="body">
7286         <p>My
7287 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
7288 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
7289 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
7290 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
7291 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
7292 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
7293 version too.</p>
7294
7295 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
7296 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
7297 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
7298 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
7299 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
7300 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
7301 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
7302 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
7303
7304 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
7305 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
7306 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
7307 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
7308 it. :)</p>
7309
7310 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7311 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7312 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7313
7314       </div>
7315       <div class="tags">
7316
7317
7318         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7319
7320
7321       </div>
7322     </div>
7323     <div class="padding"></div>
7324
7325     <div class="entry">
7326       <div class="title">
7327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
7328       </div>
7329       <div class="date">
7330         22nd January 2013
7331       </div>
7332       <div class="body">
7333         <p>Yesterday, I
7334 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
7335 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
7336 pluggable hardware devices, which I
7337 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
7338 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
7339 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
7340 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
7341 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
7342 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
7343 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
7344 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
7345 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
7346 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
7347
7348 <pre>
7349 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
7350 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
7351 </pre>
7352
7353 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
7354 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
7355 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
7356 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
7357
7358 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
7359 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
7360 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
7361 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
7362 word.</p>
7363
7364 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
7365 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
7366 process.</p>
7367
7368 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
7369 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
7370
7371       </div>
7372       <div class="tags">
7373
7374
7375         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7376
7377
7378       </div>
7379     </div>
7380     <div class="padding"></div>
7381
7382     <div class="entry">
7383       <div class="title">
7384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
7385       </div>
7386       <div class="date">
7387         21st January 2013
7388       </div>
7389       <div class="body">
7390         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
7391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
7392 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
7393 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
7394 it, fetch the
7395 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
7396 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
7397 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
7398 autostart script.</p>
7399
7400 <p>The design is simple:</p>
7401
7402 <ul>
7403
7404 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
7405 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
7406
7407 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
7408 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
7409 initially did.</li>
7410
7411 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
7412 the APT database, a database
7413 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
7414 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
7415
7416 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
7417 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
7418 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
7419 package or packages.</li>
7420
7421 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
7422 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
7423
7424 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
7425 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
7426
7427 </ul>
7428
7429 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
7430 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
7431 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
7432 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
7433
7434 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
7435 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
7436 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
7437 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
7438 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
7439
7440 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
7441 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
7442 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
7443 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
7444 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
7445 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
7446 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
7447 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
7448
7449 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
7450 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
7451 '<tt>svn checkout
7452 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
7453 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
7454 devscripts package.</p>
7455
7456 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
7457 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
7458 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
7459 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
7460 instructions</a> for details.</p>
7461
7462       </div>
7463       <div class="tags">
7464
7465
7466         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7467
7468
7469       </div>
7470     </div>
7471     <div class="padding"></div>
7472
7473     <div class="entry">
7474       <div class="title">
7475         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
7476       </div>
7477       <div class="date">
7478         19th January 2013
7479       </div>
7480       <div class="body">
7481         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
7482 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
7483 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
7484 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
7485 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
7486 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
7487 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
7488 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
7489 not a durable solution.
7490
7491 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
7492 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
7493
7494 <ul>
7495
7496 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
7497   than A4).</li>
7498 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
7499 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
7500 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
7501 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
7502 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
7503 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
7504 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
7505 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
7506 size).</li>
7507 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
7508   X.org packages.</li>
7509 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
7510   the time).
7511
7512 </ul>
7513
7514 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
7515 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
7516 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
7517 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
7518 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
7519 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
7520 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
7521 still be useful.</p>
7522
7523 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
7524 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
7525 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
7526 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
7527 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
7528 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
7529
7530       </div>
7531       <div class="tags">
7532
7533
7534         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7535
7536
7537       </div>
7538     </div>
7539     <div class="padding"></div>
7540
7541     <div class="entry">
7542       <div class="title">
7543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
7544       </div>
7545       <div class="date">
7546         18th January 2013
7547       </div>
7548       <div class="body">
7549         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
7550 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
7551 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
7552 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
7553 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
7554 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
7555 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
7556
7557 <pre>
7558 #!/usr/bin/python
7559 import sys
7560 import apt
7561 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7562     cache = apt.Cache()
7563     cache.open(None)
7564     thepkgs = []
7565     for pkg in cache:
7566         version = pkg.candidate
7567         if version is None:
7568             version = pkg.installed
7569         if version is None:
7570             continue
7571         record = version.record
7572         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
7573             continue
7574         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
7575         for t in mime_types:
7576             t = t.rstrip().strip()
7577             if t == mimetype:
7578                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
7579     return thepkgs
7580 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
7581 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
7582     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
7583 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
7584 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7585     print "  %s" %pkg
7586 </pre>
7587
7588 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
7589
7590 <pre>
7591 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
7592 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
7593   gecko-mediaplayer
7594 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
7595 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
7596   browser-plugin-gnash
7597 %
7598 </pre>
7599
7600 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
7601 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
7602 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
7603 anyone working on adding it?</p>
7604
7605 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
7606 request for icweasel support for this feature is
7607 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
7608 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
7609 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
7610 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
7611
7612       </div>
7613       <div class="tags">
7614
7615
7616         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7617
7618
7619       </div>
7620     </div>
7621     <div class="padding"></div>
7622
7623     <div class="entry">
7624       <div class="title">
7625         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
7626       </div>
7627       <div class="date">
7628         16th January 2013
7629       </div>
7630       <div class="body">
7631         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
7632 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
7633 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
7634 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
7635 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
7636 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
7637 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
7638 downloaded by the browser.</p>
7639
7640 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
7641 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
7642 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
7643 can be found on the
7644 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
7645 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
7646 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
7647 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
7648 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
7649
7650 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
7651
7652 <pre>
7653   count MIME type
7654   ----- -----------------------
7655      32 text/plain
7656      30 audio/mpeg
7657      29 image/png
7658      28 image/jpeg
7659      27 application/ogg
7660      26 audio/x-mp3
7661      25 image/tiff
7662      25 image/gif
7663      22 image/bmp
7664      22 audio/x-wav
7665      20 audio/x-flac
7666      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7667      18 video/x-ms-asf
7668      18 audio/x-musepack
7669      18 audio/x-mpeg
7670      18 application/x-ogg
7671      17 video/mpeg
7672      17 audio/x-scpls
7673      17 audio/ogg
7674      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7675 </pre>
7676
7677 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
7678
7679 <pre>
7680   count MIME type
7681   ----- -----------------------
7682      33 text/plain
7683      32 image/png
7684      32 image/jpeg
7685      29 audio/mpeg
7686      27 image/gif
7687      26 image/tiff
7688      26 application/ogg
7689      25 audio/x-mp3
7690      22 image/bmp
7691      21 audio/x-wav
7692      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7693      19 audio/x-mpeg
7694      18 video/mpeg
7695      18 audio/x-scpls
7696      18 audio/x-flac
7697      18 application/x-ogg
7698      17 video/x-ms-asf
7699      17 text/html
7700      17 audio/x-musepack
7701      16 image/x-xbitmap
7702 </pre>
7703
7704 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
7705
7706 <pre>
7707   count MIME type
7708   ----- -----------------------
7709      31 text/plain
7710      31 image/png
7711      31 image/jpeg
7712      29 audio/mpeg
7713      28 application/ogg
7714      27 image/gif
7715      26 image/tiff
7716      26 audio/x-mp3
7717      23 audio/x-wav
7718      22 image/bmp
7719      21 audio/x-flac
7720      20 audio/x-mpegurl
7721      19 audio/x-mpeg
7722      18 video/x-ms-asf
7723      18 video/mpeg
7724      18 audio/x-scpls
7725      18 application/x-ogg
7726      17 audio/x-musepack
7727      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7728      16 video/x-msvideo
7729 </pre>
7730
7731 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
7732 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
7733 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
7734 issues.</p>
7735
7736 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
7737 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
7738
7739       </div>
7740       <div class="tags">
7741
7742
7743         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7744
7745
7746       </div>
7747     </div>
7748     <div class="padding"></div>
7749
7750     <div class="entry">
7751       <div class="title">
7752         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
7753       </div>
7754       <div class="date">
7755         15th January 2013
7756       </div>
7757       <div class="body">
7758         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
7759 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
7760 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
7761 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
7762 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
7763 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
7764 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
7765 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
7766 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
7767 packages.</p>
7768
7769 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
7770 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
7771 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
7772 modalias.</p>
7773
7774 <p><blockquote>
7775 Package: package-name
7776 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
7777 </blockquote></p>
7778
7779 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
7780 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
7781
7782 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
7783 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
7784
7785 <p><blockquote>
7786 Package: cheese
7787 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
7788 </blockquote></p>
7789
7790 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
7791 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
7792
7793 <p><blockquote>
7794 Package: pcmciautils
7795 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
7796 </blockquote></p>
7797
7798 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
7799 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
7800
7801 <p><blockquote>
7802 Package: colorhug-client
7803 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
7804 </blockquote></p>
7805
7806 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
7807 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
7808 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
7809
7810 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
7811 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
7812 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
7813 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
7814 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
7815 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
7816 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
7817 Raring.</p>
7818
7819 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
7820 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
7821 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
7822 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
7823 try the
7824 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
7825 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7826 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7827 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
7828
7829 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7830 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
7831
7832 <p><blockquote>
7833 % ./hw-support-lookup
7834 <br>yubikey-personalization
7835 <br>%
7836 </blockquote></p>
7837
7838 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7839 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
7840
7841 <p><blockquote>
7842 % ./hw-support-lookup
7843 <br>pcmciautils
7844 <br>%
7845 </blockquote></p>
7846
7847 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7848 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7849 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
7850
7851 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7852 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
7853 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7854 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
7855 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7856 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7857 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
7858 see if it work.</p>
7859
7860 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7861 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7862 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7863 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7864
7865       </div>
7866       <div class="tags">
7867
7868
7869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7870
7871
7872       </div>
7873     </div>
7874     <div class="padding"></div>
7875
7876     <div class="entry">
7877       <div class="title">
7878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
7879       </div>
7880       <div class="date">
7881         14th January 2013
7882       </div>
7883       <div class="body">
7884         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7885 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7886 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7887 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
7888 in
7889 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7890 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
7891
7892 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
7893
7894 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7895 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
7896 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
7897 &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;,
7898 &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
7899 &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;.
7900
7901 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7902 this shell script:</p>
7903
7904 <pre>
7905 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
7906 </pre>
7907
7908 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7909 using modinfo:</p>
7910
7911 <pre>
7912 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7913 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7914 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7915 %
7916 </pre>
7917
7918 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
7919
7920 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
7921 Bridge memory controller:</p>
7922
7923 <p><blockquote>
7924 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7925 </blockquote></p>
7926
7927 <p>This represent these values:</p>
7928
7929 <pre>
7930  v   00008086  (vendor)
7931  d   00002770  (device)
7932  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
7933  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
7934  bc  06        (bus class)
7935  sc  00        (bus subclass)
7936  i   00        (interface)
7937 </pre>
7938
7939 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
7940 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
7941 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
7942 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
7943
7944 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
7945 means.</p>
7946
7947 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
7948
7949 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
7950 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
7951
7952 <p><blockquote>
7953 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7954 </blockquote></p>
7955
7956 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
7957
7958 <pre>
7959  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
7960  p    0001  (device product)
7961  d    0206  (bcddevice)
7962  dc     09  (device class)
7963  dsc    00  (device subclass)
7964  dp     00  (device protocol)
7965  ic     09  (interface class)
7966  isc    00  (interface subclass)
7967  ip     00  (interface protocol)
7968 </pre>
7969
7970 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
7971 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
7972 these alias entries show up:</p>
7973
7974 <p><blockquote>
7975 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7976 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7977 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7978 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7979 </blockquote></p>
7980
7981 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
7982 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
7983 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
7984
7985 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
7986
7987 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
7988 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
7989
7990 <p><blockquote>
7991 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7992 </blockquote></p>
7993
7994 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
7995
7996 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
7997
7998 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7999 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
8000 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
8001
8002 <p><blockquote>
8003 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
8004 </blockquote></p>
8005
8006 <p>The values present are</p>
8007
8008 <pre>
8009  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
8010  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
8011  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
8012  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
8013  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
8014  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
8015  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
8016  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
8017  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
8018  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
8019  ct   10             (chassis type)
8020  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
8021 </pre>
8022
8023 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
8024 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
8025
8026 <pre>
8027   3 Desktop
8028   4 Low Profile Desktop
8029   5 Pizza Box
8030   6 Mini Tower
8031   7 Tower
8032   8 Portable
8033   9 Laptop
8034  10 Notebook
8035  11 Hand Held
8036  12 Docking Station
8037  13 All In One
8038  14 Sub Notebook
8039  15 Space-saving
8040  16 Lunch Box
8041  17 Main Server Chassis
8042  18 Expansion Chassis
8043  19 Sub Chassis
8044  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
8045  21 Peripheral Chassis
8046  22 RAID Chassis
8047  23 Rack Mount Chassis
8048  24 Sealed-case PC
8049  25 Multi-system
8050  26 CompactPCI
8051  27 AdvancedTCA
8052  28 Blade
8053  29 Blade Enclosing
8054 </pre>
8055
8056 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
8057 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
8058 claim it is a desktop.</p>
8059
8060 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
8061
8062 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
8063 test machine:</p>
8064
8065 <p><blockquote>
8066 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
8067 </blockquote></p>
8068
8069 <p>The values present are</p>
8070
8071 <pre>
8072   ty  01  (type)
8073   pr  00  (prototype)
8074   id  00  (id)
8075   ex  00  (extra)
8076 </pre>
8077
8078 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
8079 the valid values are.</p>
8080
8081 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
8082
8083 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
8084 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
8085 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
8086 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
8087 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
8088 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
8089 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
8090
8091 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
8092
8093 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
8094 one can use the following shell script:</p>
8095
8096 <pre>
8097   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
8098     echo "$id" ; \
8099     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
8100   done
8101 </pre>
8102
8103 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
8104 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
8105
8106 <pre>
8107   acpi:ACPI0003:
8108     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
8109   acpi:device:
8110   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
8111   acpi:IBM0068:
8112     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
8113     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
8114     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
8115     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
8116   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8117     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
8118     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
8119     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
8120   [...]
8121 </pre>
8122
8123 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8124 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8125 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8126 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
8127
8128 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
8129 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
8130 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
8131
8132       </div>
8133       <div class="tags">
8134
8135
8136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
8137
8138
8139       </div>
8140     </div>
8141     <div class="padding"></div>
8142
8143     <div class="entry">
8144       <div class="title">
8145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
8146       </div>
8147       <div class="date">
8148         10th January 2013
8149       </div>
8150       <div class="body">
8151         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
8152 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
8153 Launcher and updated the Debian package
8154 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
8155 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
8156 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
8157 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
8158 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
8159 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
8160 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
8161 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
8162 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
8163 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
8164 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
8165 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
8166 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
8167 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
8168 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
8169
8170       </div>
8171       <div class="tags">
8172
8173
8174         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
8175
8176
8177       </div>
8178     </div>
8179     <div class="padding"></div>
8180
8181     <div class="entry">
8182       <div class="title">
8183         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="date">
8186          9th January 2013
8187       </div>
8188       <div class="body">
8189         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
8190 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
8191 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
8192 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
8193 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
8194 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
8195 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
8196 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
8197 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
8198 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
8199 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
8200
8201 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
8202 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
8203 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
8204 simple:
8205
8206 <ul>
8207
8208 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
8209   starting when a user log in.</li>
8210
8211 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
8212   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
8213
8214 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
8215   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
8216   packages.</li>
8217
8218 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
8219   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
8220
8221 </ul>
8222
8223 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
8224 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
8225 discover database to find packages and
8226 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
8227 packages.</p>
8228
8229 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
8230 draft package is now checked into
8231 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
8232 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
8233 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
8234 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
8235 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
8236 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
8237 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
8238 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
8239 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
8240 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
8241 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
8242 because of the freeze).</p>
8243
8244 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
8245 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
8246 inserted):</p>
8247
8248 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
8249
8250 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
8251 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
8252 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
8253
8254 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
8255 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
8256 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
8257 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
8258 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
8259 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
8260 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
8261
8262 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
8263 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
8264 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
8265 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
8266 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
8267 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
8268 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
8269 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
8270 not be installed?</p>
8271
8272 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
8273 please send me an email. :)</p>
8274
8275       </div>
8276       <div class="tags">
8277
8278
8279         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
8280
8281
8282       </div>
8283     </div>
8284     <div class="padding"></div>
8285
8286     <div class="entry">
8287       <div class="title">
8288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
8289       </div>
8290       <div class="date">
8291          2nd January 2013
8292       </div>
8293       <div class="body">
8294         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
8295 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
8296 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
8297 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
8298 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
8299 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
8300 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
8301 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
8302 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
8303 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
8304
8305 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
8306 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
8307 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
8308
8309       </div>
8310       <div class="tags">
8311
8312
8313         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
8314
8315
8316       </div>
8317     </div>
8318     <div class="padding"></div>
8319
8320     <div class="entry">
8321       <div class="title">
8322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
8323       </div>
8324       <div class="date">
8325         25th December 2012
8326       </div>
8327       <div class="body">
8328         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
8329 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
8330
8331 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
8332 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
8333 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
8334 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
8335 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
8336 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
8337 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
8338 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
8339 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
8340 name.</p>
8341
8342 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
8343 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
8344 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
8345
8346 <blockquote><pre>
8347 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
8348 cd bitcoin
8349 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
8350 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
8351 </pre></blockquote>
8352
8353 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
8354 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
8355 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
8356 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
8357 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
8358 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
8359 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
8360 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
8361 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
8362
8363 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8364 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8365 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8366
8367       </div>
8368       <div class="tags">
8369
8370
8371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8372
8373
8374       </div>
8375     </div>
8376     <div class="padding"></div>
8377
8378     <div class="entry">
8379       <div class="title">
8380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
8381       </div>
8382       <div class="date">
8383         21st December 2012
8384       </div>
8385       <div class="body">
8386         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
8387 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
8388 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
8389 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
8390 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
8391 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
8392 is now maintained by a
8393 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
8394 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
8395 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
8396 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
8397 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
8398 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
8399 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
8400 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
8401 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
8402 Corallo in a
8403 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
8404 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
8405 Debian package.</p>
8406
8407 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
8408 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
8409 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
8410 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
8411 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
8412 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
8413 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
8414 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
8415 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
8416 new version to unstable.
8417
8418 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
8419 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
8420 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
8421 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
8422 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
8423 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
8424 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
8425 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
8426 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
8427 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
8428 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
8429 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
8430 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
8431 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
8432 have not tested them.</p>
8433
8434 <p>My
8435 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
8436 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
8437 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
8438 years ago, as can be
8439 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
8440 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
8441 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
8442 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
8443 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
8444 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
8445 the same address as last time,
8446 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8447
8448       </div>
8449       <div class="tags">
8450
8451
8452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8453
8454
8455       </div>
8456     </div>
8457     <div class="padding"></div>
8458
8459     <div class="entry">
8460       <div class="title">
8461         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8462       </div>
8463       <div class="date">
8464          7th September 2012
8465       </div>
8466       <div class="body">
8467         <p>As I
8468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
8469 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
8470 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
8471 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
8472 repository for the project</a>.</p>
8473
8474 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
8475 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
8476 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
8477 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
8478
8479 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
8480 PostScript formats at
8481 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
8482 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
8483
8484       </div>
8485       <div class="tags">
8486
8487
8488         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
8489
8490
8491       </div>
8492     </div>
8493     <div class="padding"></div>
8494
8495     <div class="entry">
8496       <div class="title">
8497         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
8498       </div>
8499       <div class="date">
8500         16th August 2012
8501       </div>
8502       <div class="body">
8503         <p>I dag fyller
8504 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
8505 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
8506 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
8507
8508       </div>
8509       <div class="tags">
8510
8511
8512         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
8513
8514
8515       </div>
8516     </div>
8517     <div class="padding"></div>
8518
8519     <div class="entry">
8520       <div class="title">
8521         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8522       </div>
8523       <div class="date">
8524         24th June 2012
8525       </div>
8526       <div class="body">
8527         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8528 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
8529 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
8530 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8531 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8532 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
8533 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8534 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8535 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
8536 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
8537 missing in my book.</p>
8538
8539 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8540 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8541 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8542 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8543 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
8544 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8545 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
8546
8547       </div>
8548       <div class="tags">
8549
8550
8551         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
8552
8553
8554       </div>
8555     </div>
8556     <div class="padding"></div>
8557
8558     <div class="entry">
8559       <div class="title">
8560         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
8561       </div>
8562       <div class="date">
8563         21st November 2011
8564       </div>
8565       <div class="body">
8566         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
8567 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
8568 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
8569 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
8570 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
8571 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
8572 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
8573 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
8574 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
8575 the tools to do so.</p>
8576
8577 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
8578 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
8579 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
8580 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
8581
8582 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
8583 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
8584 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
8585 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
8586 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
8587 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
8588 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
8589 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
8590
8591 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
8592 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
8593 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
8594
8595 <p><pre>
8596 #!/usr/bin/perl
8597 use strict;
8598 use warnings;
8599 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
8600 BEGIN {
8601     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
8602     my %rhelmodules = (
8603         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
8604         );
8605     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
8606         eval "use $module;";
8607         if ($@) {
8608             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
8609             system("yum install -y $pkg");
8610             eval "use $module;";
8611         }
8612     }
8613 }
8614 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
8615
8616 upgrade_dell();
8617
8618 exit 0;
8619
8620 sub run_firmware_script {
8621     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
8622     unless ($script) {
8623         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
8624         exit 1
8625     }
8626     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
8627
8628     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
8629         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
8630     } else {
8631         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
8632     }
8633 }
8634
8635 sub run_firmware_scripts {
8636     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
8637     # Run firmware packages
8638     for my $dir (@dirs) {
8639         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
8640         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
8641         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
8642             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
8643             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
8644         }
8645         closedir $dh;
8646     }
8647 }
8648
8649 sub download {
8650     my $url = shift;
8651     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
8652     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
8653 }
8654
8655 sub upgrade_dell {
8656     my @dirs;
8657     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8658     chomp $product;
8659
8660     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
8661
8662         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
8663         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
8664
8665         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
8666             CLEANUP => 1
8667             );
8668         chdir($tmpdir);
8669         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
8670         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
8671         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
8672         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
8673         my $fwopts = "-q";
8674         if (@paths) {
8675             for my $url (@paths) {
8676                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
8677             }
8678             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
8679         } else {
8680             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8681             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8682         }
8683         chdir('/');
8684     } else {
8685         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8686         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8687     }
8688 }
8689
8690 sub fetch_dell_fw {
8691     my $path = shift;
8692     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
8693     download($url);
8694 }
8695
8696 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
8697 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
8698 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
8699 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
8700     my $filename = shift;
8701
8702     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8703     chomp $product;
8704     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
8705
8706     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
8707
8708     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
8709     my @paths;
8710     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
8711         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
8712         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
8713         my $oscode;
8714         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
8715             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
8716         } else {
8717             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
8718         }
8719         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
8720         {
8721             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
8722         }
8723     }
8724     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
8725         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
8726
8727         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
8728         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
8729
8730         my $cpath = $component->{path};
8731         for my $path (@paths) {
8732             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
8733                 push(@paths, $cpath);
8734             }
8735         }
8736     }
8737     return @paths;
8738 }
8739 </pre>
8740
8741 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
8742 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
8743 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
8744 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
8745 outdated.</p>
8746
8747       </div>
8748       <div class="tags">
8749
8750
8751         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8752
8753
8754       </div>
8755     </div>
8756     <div class="padding"></div>
8757
8758     <div class="entry">
8759       <div class="title">
8760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
8761       </div>
8762       <div class="date">
8763          4th August 2011
8764       </div>
8765       <div class="body">
8766         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
8767 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
8768 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
8769 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
8770 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
8771 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
8772 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
8773 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
8774 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
8775
8776 <p><blockquote>
8777 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
8778 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
8779 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
8780 </blockquote></p>
8781
8782 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
8783 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
8784 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
8785 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
8786 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
8787 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
8788 hard to explain.</p>
8789
8790 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
8791 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
8792 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
8793 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
8794 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
8795 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
8796 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
8797 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
8798 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
8799 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
8800 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
8801 mode).</p>
8802
8803 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
8804 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
8805 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
8806 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
8807 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
8808 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
8809 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
8810 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
8811 after visiting single user mode.</p>
8812
8813 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
8814 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
8815 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
8816 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
8817 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
8818 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
8819 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
8820 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
8821
8822 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
8823 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
8824 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
8825
8826       </div>
8827       <div class="tags">
8828
8829
8830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8831
8832
8833       </div>
8834     </div>
8835     <div class="padding"></div>
8836
8837     <div class="entry">
8838       <div class="title">
8839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
8840       </div>
8841       <div class="date">
8842         30th July 2011
8843       </div>
8844       <div class="body">
8845         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
8846 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
8847 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
8848 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
8849 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
8850 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
8851 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
8852 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
8853 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
8854 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
8855 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
8856 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
8857 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
8858
8859 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
8860 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
8861 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
8862 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
8863 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
8864 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
8865 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
8866 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
8867 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
8868
8869 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
8870 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
8871 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
8872 is presented.</p>
8873
8874 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
8875 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
8876 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
8877 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
8878 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
8879 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
8880 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
8881 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
8882 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
8883 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
8884 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
8885 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
8886 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
8887 find time to push this forward.</p>
8888
8889       </div>
8890       <div class="tags">
8891
8892
8893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8894
8895
8896       </div>
8897     </div>
8898     <div class="padding"></div>
8899
8900     <div class="entry">
8901       <div class="title">
8902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
8903       </div>
8904       <div class="date">
8905         29th July 2011
8906       </div>
8907       <div class="body">
8908         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
8909 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
8910 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
8911 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
8912 issues.</p>
8913
8914 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
8915 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
8916 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
8917
8918 <ol>
8919
8920 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
8921 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
8922 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
8923 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
8924 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
8925 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
8926 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
8927 Debian.</li>
8928
8929 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
8930 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
8931 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
8932 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
8933 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
8934 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
8935 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
8936 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
8937 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
8938 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
8939 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
8940 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
8941 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
8942
8943 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
8944 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
8945 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8946 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
8947 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
8948 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8949 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
8950 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
8951 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8952 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8953
8954 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8955 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8956 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8957 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
8958 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
8959 latter behaviour.</li>
8960
8961 </ol>
8962
8963 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8964 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8965 it do not matter much.</p>
8966
8967 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8968 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
8969 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8970
8971       </div>
8972       <div class="tags">
8973
8974
8975         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8976
8977
8978       </div>
8979     </div>
8980     <div class="padding"></div>
8981
8982     <div class="entry">
8983       <div class="title">
8984         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
8985       </div>
8986       <div class="date">
8987         26th July 2011
8988       </div>
8989       <div class="body">
8990         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
8991 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8992 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8993 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8994 security support for a few years.</p>
8995
8996 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8997 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
8998 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8999 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
9000 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
9001 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
9002 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
9003 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
9004 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
9005 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
9006 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
9007 easier in the future.</p>
9008
9009 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
9010 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
9011 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
9012 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
9013 do not have time for.</p>
9014
9015       </div>
9016       <div class="tags">
9017
9018
9019         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
9020
9021
9022       </div>
9023     </div>
9024     <div class="padding"></div>
9025
9026     <div class="entry">
9027       <div class="title">
9028         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
9029       </div>
9030       <div class="date">
9031          3rd April 2011
9032       </div>
9033       <div class="body">
9034         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
9035 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
9036 update in English.</p>
9037
9038 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
9039 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
9040 of the British service
9041 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
9042 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
9043 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
9044 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
9045 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
9046 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
9047 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
9048 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
9049 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
9050 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
9051 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
9052 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
9053 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
9054
9055 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
9056 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
9057 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
9058 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
9059 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
9060 public infrastructure.</p>
9061
9062 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
9063 such service?</p>
9064
9065       </div>
9066       <div class="tags">
9067
9068
9069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
9070
9071
9072       </div>
9073     </div>
9074     <div class="padding"></div>
9075
9076     <div class="entry">
9077       <div class="title">
9078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
9079       </div>
9080       <div class="date">
9081         28th January 2011
9082       </div>
9083       <div class="body">
9084         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
9085 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
9086 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
9087 available on the Internet, and check our locally
9088 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
9089 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
9090 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
9091 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
9092 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
9093 out which security holes were present in our free software
9094 collection.</p>
9095
9096 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
9097 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
9098 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
9099 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
9100 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
9101 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
9102 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
9103 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
9104 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
9105 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
9106 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
9107 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
9108 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
9109 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
9110 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
9111 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
9112
9113 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
9114 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
9115 check out, one could look up
9116 <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
9117 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
9118 The most recent one is
9119 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
9120 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
9121 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
9122
9123 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
9124 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
9125 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
9126 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
9127 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
9128 security issues out.</p>
9129
9130 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
9131 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
9132 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
9133 RHEL is providing
9134 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
9135 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
9136 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
9137
9138 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
9139 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
9140 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
9141 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
9142 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
9143 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
9144 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
9145 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
9146 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
9147 established soon.</p>
9148
9149 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
9150 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
9151 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
9152 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
9153 for their packages.</p>
9154
9155       </div>
9156       <div class="tags">
9157
9158
9159         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
9160
9161
9162       </div>
9163     </div>
9164     <div class="padding"></div>
9165
9166     <div class="entry">
9167       <div class="title">
9168         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
9169       </div>
9170       <div class="date">
9171         23rd January 2011
9172       </div>
9173       <div class="body">
9174         <p>In the
9175 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
9176 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
9177 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
9178 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
9179 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
9180 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
9181 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
9182 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
9183 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
9184 one of my machines like this:</p>
9185
9186 <pre>
9187 loaded modules:
9188 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
9189 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
9190 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
9191 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
9192 10de:03ec pata_amd
9193 10de:03f6 sata_nv
9194 1022:1103 k8temp
9195 109e:036e bttv
9196 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
9197 11ab:4364 sky2
9198 </pre>
9199
9200 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
9201 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
9202
9203 <pre>
9204 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
9205     echo loaded pci modules:
9206     (
9207         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
9208         for address in * ; do
9209             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
9210                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
9211                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
9212                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
9213                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
9214                     echo "$id $module"
9215                 fi
9216             fi
9217         done
9218     )
9219     echo
9220 fi
9221 </pre>
9222
9223 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
9224 mappings:</p>
9225
9226 <pre>
9227 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
9228     echo loaded usb modules:
9229     (
9230         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
9231         for address in * ; do
9232             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
9233                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
9234                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
9235                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
9236                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
9237                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
9238                         echo "$id $module"
9239                     fi
9240                 fi
9241             fi
9242         done
9243     )
9244     echo
9245 fi
9246 </pre>
9247
9248 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
9249 well.</p>
9250
9251       </div>
9252       <div class="tags">
9253
9254
9255         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9256
9257
9258       </div>
9259     </div>
9260     <div class="padding"></div>
9261
9262     <div class="entry">
9263       <div class="title">
9264         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
9265       </div>
9266       <div class="date">
9267         22nd December 2010
9268       </div>
9269       <div class="body">
9270         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
9271 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
9272 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
9273 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
9274 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
9275 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
9276 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
9277 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
9278 university.</p>
9279
9280 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
9281 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
9282 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
9283 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
9284 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
9285 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
9286 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
9287 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
9288
9289 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
9290 I perform on a new model.</p>
9291
9292 <ul>
9293
9294 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
9295 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
9296 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
9297
9298 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
9299 installation, X.org is working.</li>
9300
9301 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
9302 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
9303 reported by the program.</li>
9304
9305 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
9306 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
9307 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
9308 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
9309 normally test this by playing
9310 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
9311 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
9312
9313 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
9314 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9315
9316 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
9317 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9318
9319 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
9320 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
9321
9322 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
9323 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
9324 few.</li>
9325
9326 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
9327 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
9328 notice this.</li>
9329
9330 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
9331 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
9332 resume.</li>
9333
9334 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
9335 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
9336 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
9337 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
9338 not.</li>
9339
9340 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
9341 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
9342 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
9343 existence.</li>
9344
9345 </ul>
9346
9347 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
9348 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
9349 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
9350 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
9351 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
9352 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
9353 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
9354 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
9355
9356       </div>
9357       <div class="tags">
9358
9359
9360         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9361
9362
9363       </div>
9364     </div>
9365     <div class="padding"></div>
9366
9367     <div class="entry">
9368       <div class="title">
9369         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
9370       </div>
9371       <div class="date">
9372         11th December 2010
9373       </div>
9374       <div class="body">
9375         <p>As I continue to explore
9376 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
9377 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
9378 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
9379
9380 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
9381 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
9382 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
9383 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
9384 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
9385 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
9386 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
9387 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
9388 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
9389 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
9390 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
9391 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
9392 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
9393 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
9394 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
9395 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
9396 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
9397 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
9398 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
9399 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
9400
9401 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
9402 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
9403 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
9404 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
9405 If the Skolelinux foundation
9406 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
9407 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
9408 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
9409 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
9410 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
9411 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
9412 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
9413 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
9414
9415 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
9416 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
9417 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
9418 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
9419 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
9420 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
9421 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
9422 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
9423 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
9424 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
9425 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
9426 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
9427 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
9428 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
9429 currencies.</p>
9430
9431 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
9432 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
9433 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
9434 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
9435 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
9436 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
9437 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
9438 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
9439 BitCoins.  Check out
9440 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
9441 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
9442 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
9443 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
9444 yet.</p>
9445
9446 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
9447 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
9448 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
9449 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
9450 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
9451
9452       </div>
9453       <div class="tags">
9454
9455
9456         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
9457
9458
9459       </div>
9460     </div>
9461     <div class="padding"></div>
9462
9463     <div class="entry">
9464       <div class="title">
9465         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
9466       </div>
9467       <div class="date">
9468         10th December 2010
9469       </div>
9470       <div class="body">
9471         <p>With this weeks lawless
9472 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
9473 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
9474 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
9475 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
9476 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
9477 A blog post from
9478 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
9479 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
9480 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
9481 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
9482 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
9483 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
9484 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
9485
9486 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
9487 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
9488 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
9489 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
9490 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
9491 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
9492 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
9493 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
9494 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
9495 Debian</a> soon.</p>
9496
9497 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
9498 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
9499 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
9500 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
9501 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
9502 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
9503 you can even get
9504 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
9505 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
9506 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
9507 on the current exchange rates.</p>
9508
9509 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
9510 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
9511 donations to the address
9512 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
9513
9514       </div>
9515       <div class="tags">
9516
9517
9518         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
9519
9520
9521       </div>
9522     </div>
9523     <div class="padding"></div>
9524
9525     <div class="entry">
9526       <div class="title">
9527         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
9528       </div>
9529       <div class="date">
9530         27th November 2010
9531       </div>
9532       <div class="body">
9533         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9534 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9535 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9536 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9537 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
9538 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9539 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9540 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
9541
9542 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9543 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9544 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
9545 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9546 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9547 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
9548 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9549 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9550 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
9551 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9552 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
9553
9554 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9555 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9556 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
9557 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9558 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
9559 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9560 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9561 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9562 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9563 what is going on.</p>
9564
9565       </div>
9566       <div class="tags">
9567
9568
9569         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9570
9571
9572       </div>
9573     </div>
9574     <div class="padding"></div>
9575
9576     <div class="entry">
9577       <div class="title">
9578         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
9579       </div>
9580       <div class="date">
9581         22nd November 2010
9582       </div>
9583       <div class="body">
9584         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
9585 upgrade testing of the
9586 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9587 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
9588 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
9589 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
9590
9591 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9592
9593 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9594
9595 <blockquote><p>
9596   apache2.2-bin
9597   aptdaemon
9598   baobab
9599   binfmt-support
9600   browser-plugin-gnash
9601   cheese-common
9602   cli-common
9603   cups-pk-helper
9604   dmz-cursor-theme
9605   empathy
9606   empathy-common
9607   freedesktop-sound-theme
9608   freeglut3
9609   gconf-defaults-service
9610   gdm-themes
9611   gedit-plugins
9612   geoclue
9613   geoclue-hostip
9614   geoclue-localnet
9615   geoclue-manual
9616   geoclue-yahoo
9617   gnash
9618   gnash-common
9619   gnome
9620   gnome-backgrounds
9621   gnome-cards-data
9622   gnome-codec-install
9623   gnome-core
9624   gnome-desktop-environment
9625   gnome-disk-utility
9626   gnome-screenshot
9627   gnome-search-tool
9628   gnome-session-canberra
9629   gnome-system-log
9630   gnome-themes-extras
9631   gnome-themes-more
9632   gnome-user-share
9633   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9634   gstreamer0.10-tools
9635   gtk2-engines
9636   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9637   gtk2-engines-smooth
9638   hamster-applet
9639   libapache2-mod-dnssd
9640   libapr1
9641   libaprutil1
9642   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
9643   libaprutil1-ldap
9644   libart2.0-cil
9645   libboost-date-time1.42.0
9646   libboost-python1.42.0
9647   libboost-thread1.42.0
9648   libchamplain-0.4-0
9649   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
9650   libcheese-gtk18
9651   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9652   libcryptui0
9653   libdiscid0
9654   libelf1
9655   libepc-1.0-2
9656   libepc-common
9657   libepc-ui-1.0-2
9658   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9659   libfreerdp0
9660   libgconf2.0-cil
9661   libgdata-common
9662   libgdata7
9663   libgdu-gtk0
9664   libgee2
9665   libgeoclue0
9666   libgexiv2-0
9667   libgif4
9668   libglade2.0-cil
9669   libglib2.0-cil
9670   libgmime2.4-cil
9671   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9672   libgnome2.24-cil
9673   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
9674   libgpod-common
9675   libgpod4
9676   libgtk2.0-cil
9677   libgtkglext1
9678   libgtksourceview2.0-common
9679   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9680   libmono-addins0.2-cil
9681   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
9682   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9683   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
9684   libmono-posix2.0-cil
9685   libmono-security2.0-cil
9686   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9687   libmono-system2.0-cil
9688   libmtp8
9689   libmusicbrainz3-6
9690   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
9691   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
9692   libopal3.6.8
9693   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
9694   libpt2.6.7
9695   libpython2.6
9696   librpm1
9697   librpmio1
9698   libsdl1.2debian
9699   libsrtp0
9700   libssh-4
9701   libtelepathy-farsight0
9702   libtelepathy-glib0
9703   libtidy-0.99-0
9704   media-player-info
9705   mesa-utils
9706   mono-2.0-gac
9707   mono-gac
9708   mono-runtime
9709   nautilus-sendto
9710   nautilus-sendto-empathy
9711   p7zip-full
9712   pkg-config
9713   python-aptdaemon
9714   python-aptdaemon-gtk
9715   python-axiom
9716   python-beautifulsoup
9717   python-bugbuddy
9718   python-clientform
9719   python-coherence
9720   python-configobj
9721   python-crypto
9722   python-cupshelpers
9723   python-elementtree
9724   python-epsilon
9725   python-evolution
9726   python-feedparser
9727   python-gdata
9728   python-gdbm
9729   python-gst0.10
9730   python-gtkglext1
9731   python-gtksourceview2
9732   python-httplib2
9733   python-louie
9734   python-mako
9735   python-markupsafe
9736   python-mechanize
9737   python-nevow
9738   python-notify
9739   python-opengl
9740   python-openssl
9741   python-pam
9742   python-pkg-resources
9743   python-pyasn1
9744   python-pysqlite2
9745   python-rdflib
9746   python-serial
9747   python-tagpy
9748   python-twisted-bin
9749   python-twisted-conch
9750   python-twisted-core
9751   python-twisted-web
9752   python-utidylib
9753   python-webkit
9754   python-xdg
9755   python-zope.interface
9756   remmina
9757   remmina-plugin-data
9758   remmina-plugin-rdp
9759   remmina-plugin-vnc
9760   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9761   rhythmbox-plugins
9762   rpm-common
9763   rpm2cpio
9764   seahorse-plugins
9765   shotwell
9766   software-center
9767   system-config-printer-udev
9768   telepathy-gabble
9769   telepathy-mission-control-5
9770   telepathy-salut
9771   tomboy
9772   totem
9773   totem-coherence
9774   totem-mozilla
9775   totem-plugins
9776   transmission-common
9777   xdg-user-dirs
9778   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
9779   xserver-xephyr
9780 </p></blockquote>
9781
9782 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9783
9784 <blockquote><p>
9785   cheese
9786   ekiga
9787   eog
9788   epiphany-extensions
9789   evolution-exchange
9790   fast-user-switch-applet
9791   file-roller
9792   gcalctool
9793   gconf-editor
9794   gdm
9795   gedit
9796   gedit-common
9797   gnome-games
9798   gnome-games-data
9799   gnome-nettool
9800   gnome-system-tools
9801   gnome-themes
9802   gnuchess
9803   gucharmap
9804   guile-1.8-libs
9805   libavahi-ui0
9806   libdmx1
9807   libgalago3
9808   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
9809   libgtksourceview2.0-0
9810   liblircclient0
9811   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
9812   libspeexdsp1
9813   libsvga1
9814   rhythmbox
9815   seahorse
9816   sound-juicer
9817   system-config-printer
9818   totem-common
9819   transmission-gtk
9820   vinagre
9821   vino
9822 </p></blockquote>
9823
9824 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9825
9826 <blockquote><p>
9827   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9828 </p></blockquote>
9829
9830 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9831
9832 <blockquote><p>
9833 [nothing]
9834 </p></blockquote>
9835
9836 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
9837
9838 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9839
9840 <blockquote><p>
9841   ksmserver
9842 </p></blockquote>
9843
9844 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9845
9846 <blockquote><p>
9847   kwin
9848   network-manager-kde
9849 </p></blockquote>
9850
9851 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9852
9853 <blockquote><p>
9854   arts
9855   dolphin
9856   freespacenotifier
9857   google-gadgets-gst
9858   google-gadgets-xul
9859   kappfinder
9860   kcalc
9861   kcharselect
9862   kde-core
9863   kde-plasma-desktop
9864   kde-standard
9865   kde-window-manager
9866   kdeartwork
9867   kdeartwork-emoticons
9868   kdeartwork-style
9869   kdeartwork-theme-icon
9870   kdebase
9871   kdebase-apps
9872   kdebase-workspace
9873   kdebase-workspace-bin
9874   kdebase-workspace-data
9875   kdeeject
9876   kdelibs
9877   kdeplasma-addons
9878   kdeutils
9879   kdewallpapers
9880   kdf
9881   kfloppy
9882   kgpg
9883   khelpcenter4
9884   kinfocenter
9885   konq-plugins-l10n
9886   konqueror-nsplugins
9887   kscreensaver
9888   kscreensaver-xsavers
9889   ktimer
9890   kwrite
9891   libgle3
9892   libkde4-ruby1.8
9893   libkonq5
9894   libkonq5-templates
9895   libnetpbm10
9896   libplasma-ruby
9897   libplasma-ruby1.8
9898   libqt4-ruby1.8
9899   marble-data
9900   marble-plugins
9901   netpbm
9902   nuvola-icon-theme
9903   plasma-dataengines-workspace
9904   plasma-desktop
9905   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
9906   plasma-runners-addons
9907   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
9908   plasma-scriptengine-python
9909   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
9910   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
9911   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
9912   plasma-scriptengines
9913   plasma-wallpapers-addons
9914   plasma-widget-folderview
9915   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9916   ruby
9917   sweeper
9918   update-notifier-kde
9919   xscreensaver-data-extra
9920   xscreensaver-gl
9921   xscreensaver-gl-extra
9922   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9923 </p></blockquote>
9924
9925 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9926
9927 <blockquote><p>
9928   ark
9929   google-gadgets-common
9930   google-gadgets-qt
9931   htdig
9932   kate
9933   kdebase-bin
9934   kdebase-data
9935   kdepasswd
9936   kfind
9937   klipper
9938   konq-plugins
9939   konqueror
9940   ksysguard
9941   ksysguardd
9942   libarchive1
9943   libcln6
9944   libeet1
9945   libeina-svn-06
9946   libggadget-1.0-0b
9947   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
9948   libgps19
9949   libkdecorations4
9950   libkephal4
9951   libkonq4
9952   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9953   libkscreensaver5
9954   libksgrd4
9955   libksignalplotter4
9956   libkunitconversion4
9957   libkwineffects1a
9958   libmarblewidget4
9959   libntrack-qt4-1
9960   libntrack0
9961   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9962   libplasmaclock4a
9963   libplasmagenericshell4
9964   libprocesscore4a
9965   libprocessui4a
9966   libqalculate5
9967   libqedje0a
9968   libqtruby4shared2
9969   libqzion0a
9970   libruby1.8
9971   libscim8c2a
9972   libsmokekdecore4-3
9973   libsmokekdeui4-3
9974   libsmokekfile3
9975   libsmokekhtml3
9976   libsmokekio3
9977   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
9978   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
9979   libsmokekparts3
9980   libsmokektexteditor3
9981   libsmokekutils3
9982   libsmokenepomuk3
9983   libsmokephonon3
9984   libsmokeplasma3
9985   libsmokeqtcore4-3
9986   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
9987   libsmokeqtgui4-3
9988   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
9989   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
9990   libsmokeqtscript4-3
9991   libsmokeqtsql4-3
9992   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
9993   libsmokeqttest4-3
9994   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
9995   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
9996   libsmokeqtxml4-3
9997   libsmokesolid3
9998   libsmokesoprano3
9999   libtaskmanager4a
10000   libtidy-0.99-0
10001   libweather-ion4a
10002   libxklavier16
10003   libxxf86misc1
10004   okteta
10005   oxygencursors
10006   plasma-dataengines-addons
10007   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
10008   plasma-widget-lancelot
10009   plasma-widgets-addons
10010   plasma-widgets-workspace
10011   polkit-kde-1
10012   ruby1.8
10013   systemsettings
10014   update-notifier-common
10015 </p></blockquote>
10016
10017 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
10018 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
10019 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
10020 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
10021
10022       </div>
10023       <div class="tags">
10024
10025
10026         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10027
10028
10029       </div>
10030     </div>
10031     <div class="padding"></div>
10032
10033     <div class="entry">
10034       <div class="title">
10035         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
10036       </div>
10037       <div class="date">
10038         22nd November 2010
10039       </div>
10040       <div class="body">
10041         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
10042 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
10043 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
10044 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
10045 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
10046 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
10047 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
10048 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
10049 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
10050
10051 <p>I found
10052 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
10053 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
10054 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
10055 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
10056 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
10057 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
10058
10059 <pre>
10060 #!/bin/sh
10061
10062 # Based on
10063 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
10064
10065 set -e
10066 set -x
10067
10068 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
10069     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
10070     exit 1
10071 else
10072     host="$1"
10073 fi
10074
10075 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
10076     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
10077     exit 1
10078 fi
10079
10080 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
10081 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10082 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
10083 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
10084
10085 img=$host.img
10086 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
10087 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
10088
10089 parted $img mklabel msdos
10090 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
10091 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
10092 parted $img set 1 boot on
10093
10094 modprobe dm-mod
10095 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
10096 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
10097
10098 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
10099 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
10100 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
10101
10102 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
10103 losetup -d /dev/loop0
10104 </pre>
10105
10106 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
10107 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
10108
10109 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
10110 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
10111 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
10112 seem to work just fine.</p>
10113
10114       </div>
10115       <div class="tags">
10116
10117
10118         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10119
10120
10121       </div>
10122     </div>
10123     <div class="padding"></div>
10124
10125     <div class="entry">
10126       <div class="title">
10127         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
10128       </div>
10129       <div class="date">
10130         20th November 2010
10131       </div>
10132       <div class="body">
10133         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
10134 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10135 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
10136 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
10137
10138 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
10139 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
10140 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
10141
10142 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
10143
10144 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10145
10146 <blockquote><p>
10147   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
10148   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
10149   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
10150   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
10151   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
10152   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
10153   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
10154   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
10155   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
10156   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
10157   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
10158   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
10159   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
10160   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
10161   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
10162   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
10163   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
10164   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
10165   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
10166   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
10167   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
10168   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
10169   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
10170   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
10171   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
10172   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
10173   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
10174   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
10175   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
10176   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
10177   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
10178   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10179   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
10180   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
10181   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
10182   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
10183   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
10184   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
10185   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
10186   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
10187   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
10188   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
10189   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
10190   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
10191   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
10192   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
10193   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
10194   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
10195   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
10196   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
10197   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
10198   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
10199   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
10200   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
10201   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
10202   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
10203   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
10204   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
10205   zip
10206 </p></blockquote>
10207
10208 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
10209
10210 <blockquote><p>
10211   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
10212   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
10213   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
10214   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
10215   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
10216   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
10217   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
10218   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
10219   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
10220   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
10221   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
10222   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10223   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10224   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10225   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
10226   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
10227   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10228   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
10229   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
10230   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
10231   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
10232   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
10233   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10234   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
10235   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
10236   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
10237   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
10238   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
10239   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
10240 </p></blockquote>
10241
10242 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10243
10244 <blockquote><p>
10245   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10246 </p></blockquote>
10247
10248 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10249
10250 <blockquote><p>
10251 [nothing]
10252 </p></blockquote>
10253
10254 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
10255
10256 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10257
10258 <blockquote><p>
10259   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
10260   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10261   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
10262   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
10263   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
10264   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
10265   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10266   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
10267   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
10268   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10269   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
10270   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
10271   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
10272   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
10273   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
10274   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
10275   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
10276   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
10277   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
10278   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
10279   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
10280   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
10281   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
10282   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
10283   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
10284   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
10285   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
10286   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
10287   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
10288   ttf-sazanami-gothic
10289 </p></blockquote>
10290
10291 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10292
10293 <blockquote><p>
10294   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
10295   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
10296   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
10297   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
10298   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
10299   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
10300   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
10301   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
10302   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
10303   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
10304   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
10305   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
10306   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
10307   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
10308   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10309   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10310   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
10311   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
10312   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10313   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
10314   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10315   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
10316   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10317   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10318   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
10319   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
10320   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
10321   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
10322   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
10323   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
10324   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
10325   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
10326   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
10327 </p></blockquote>
10328
10329 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10330
10331 <blockquote><p>
10332   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
10333   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
10334   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
10335   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
10336   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10337   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
10338   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10339 </p></blockquote>
10340
10341 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10342
10343 <blockquote><p>
10344   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
10345 </p></blockquote>
10346
10347       </div>
10348       <div class="tags">
10349
10350
10351         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10352
10353
10354       </div>
10355     </div>
10356     <div class="padding"></div>
10357
10358     <div class="entry">
10359       <div class="title">
10360         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
10361       </div>
10362       <div class="date">
10363         20th November 2010
10364       </div>
10365       <div class="body">
10366         <p>Answering
10367 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
10368 call from the Gnash project</a> for
10369 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
10370 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
10371 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
10372 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
10373 releases out more often.</p>
10374
10375 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
10376 I have considered setting up a <a
10377 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
10378 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
10379 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
10380 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
10381 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
10382 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
10383 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
10384 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
10385 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
10386 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
10387 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
10388 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
10389
10390       </div>
10391       <div class="tags">
10392
10393
10394         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10395
10396
10397       </div>
10398     </div>
10399     <div class="padding"></div>
10400
10401     <div class="entry">
10402       <div class="title">
10403         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
10404       </div>
10405       <div class="date">
10406          9th November 2010
10407       </div>
10408       <div class="body">
10409         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
10410
10411 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
10412 3D linked in from
10413 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
10414 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
10415
10416       </div>
10417       <div class="tags">
10418
10419
10420         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10421
10422
10423       </div>
10424     </div>
10425     <div class="padding"></div>
10426
10427     <div class="entry">
10428       <div class="title">
10429         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
10430       </div>
10431       <div class="date">
10432         24th October 2010
10433       </div>
10434       <div class="body">
10435         <p>Some updates.</p>
10436
10437 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
10438 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
10439 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
10440 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
10441 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
10442 :)</p>
10443
10444 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
10445 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
10446 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
10447 It is called
10448 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
10449 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
10450 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10451 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10452 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10453 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
10454
10455 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
10456 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10457 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
10458 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10459 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
10460 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10461 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10462 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
10463 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10464 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
10465
10466       </div>
10467       <div class="tags">
10468
10469
10470         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
10471
10472
10473       </div>
10474     </div>
10475     <div class="padding"></div>
10476
10477     <div class="entry">
10478       <div class="title">
10479         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
10480       </div>
10481       <div class="date">
10482          4th September 2010
10483       </div>
10484       <div class="body">
10485         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
10486 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
10487 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
10488 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
10489 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
10490 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
10491 installed.</p>
10492
10493 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
10494 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
10495 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
10496 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
10497 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10498 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
10499 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
10500 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
10501 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
10502
10503 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
10504 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
10505 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
10506 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
10507 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
10508 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
10509 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
10510 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
10511 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
10512 pages they want to visit.</p>
10513
10514 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
10515 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
10516 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
10517 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
10518 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
10519 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
10520 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
10521 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
10522 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
10523 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
10524 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
10525
10526       </div>
10527       <div class="tags">
10528
10529
10530         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
10531
10532
10533       </div>
10534     </div>
10535     <div class="padding"></div>
10536
10537     <div class="entry">
10538       <div class="title">
10539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
10540       </div>
10541       <div class="date">
10542         27th July 2010
10543       </div>
10544       <div class="body">
10545         <p>I discovered this while doing
10546 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
10547 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
10548 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
10549 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
10550 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
10551
10552 <p>An example is from todays
10553 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
10554 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
10555 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
10556 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
10557 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
10558 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
10559 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
10560
10561 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
10562
10563 <blockquote><pre>
10564 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
10565  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
10566   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
10567 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
10568  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
10569 </pre></blockquote>
10570
10571 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
10572 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
10573 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
10574 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
10575 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
10576 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
10577 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
10578 of dependency loops.</p>
10579
10580 <p>Thanks to
10581 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
10582 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
10583 dependencies
10584 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
10585 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
10586
10587 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
10588 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
10589 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
10590 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
10591 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
10592 it.</p>
10593
10594       </div>
10595       <div class="tags">
10596
10597
10598         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10599
10600
10601       </div>
10602     </div>
10603     <div class="padding"></div>
10604
10605     <div class="entry">
10606       <div class="title">
10607         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
10608       </div>
10609       <div class="date">
10610         17th July 2010
10611       </div>
10612       <div class="body">
10613         <p>This is a
10614 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
10615 on my
10616 <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
10617 work</a> on
10618 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10619 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
10620
10621 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10622 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10623 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
10624 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
10625
10626 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10627 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10628 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
10629
10630 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
10631
10632 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10633 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10634 the web.
10635
10636 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10637 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10638 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10639 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10640 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10641 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
10642
10643 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10644 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10645 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10646 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10647 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10648 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
10649 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10650 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10651 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10652 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10653 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10654 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
10655 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10656 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10657 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
10658 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
10659
10660 <blockquote><pre>
10661 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10662   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10663   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10664   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10665   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10666   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10667   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10668
10669 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10670   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10671   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10672   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10673   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10674   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10675 </pre></blockquote>
10676
10677 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10678 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10679 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
10680 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10681 also exist.</p>
10682
10683 <blockquote><pre>
10684 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10685 objectclass: top
10686 objectclass: dnsdomain
10687 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10688 dc: tjener
10689 arecord: 10.0.2.2
10690 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10691
10692 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10693 objectclass: top
10694 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10695 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10696 dc: 2
10697 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10698 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10699 </pre></blockquote>
10700
10701 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
10702 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10703 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10704 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10705 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10706 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10707 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
10708 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
10709 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10710 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10711 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10712 instead.</p>
10713
10714 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10715 like this:</p>
10716
10717 <blockquote><pre>
10718 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10719   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10720   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10721   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10722   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10723   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10724
10725 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10726   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10727 </pre></blockquote>
10728
10729 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10730 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10731 reverse lookups.</p>
10732
10733 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10734 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10735 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
10736 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
10737
10738 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
10739 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
10740 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
10741
10742 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10743 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10744 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
10745 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10746 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
10747
10748 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10749 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10750 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10751 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10752 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
10753
10754 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10755 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10756 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10757 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10758 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10759 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
10760
10761 <blockquote><pre>
10762 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10763     SUP top
10764     AUXILIARY
10765     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10766           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10767           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10768           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10769           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10770     ))
10771 </pre></blockquote>
10772
10773 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10774 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10775 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10776 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10777 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10778 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
10779
10780 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
10781
10782 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10783 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
10784 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10785 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10786 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
10787
10788 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10789 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10790 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
10791 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
10792
10793 <blockquote><pre>
10794 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10795 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10796 </pre></blockquote>
10797
10798 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10799 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10800 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
10801 search result is this entry:</p>
10802
10803 <blockquote><pre>
10804 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10805 cn: dhcp
10806 objectClass: top
10807 objectClass: dhcpServer
10808 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10809 </pre></blockquote>
10810
10811 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10812 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
10813 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10814 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10815 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10816 The search result is this entry:</p>
10817
10818 <blockquote><pre>
10819 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10820 cn: DHCP Config
10821 objectClass: top
10822 objectClass: dhcpService
10823 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10824 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10825 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10826 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10827 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
10828 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
10829 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
10830 </pre></blockquote>
10831
10832 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
10833 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10834 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10835 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10836 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
10837 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
10838 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10839 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10840 related computer objects.</p>
10841
10842 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10843 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
10844 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10845 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10846 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
10847 like:</p>
10848
10849 <blockquote><pre>
10850 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10851 cn: hostname
10852 objectClass: top
10853 objectClass: dhcpHost
10854 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10855 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10856 </pre></blockquote>
10857
10858 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10859 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10860 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
10861 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10862 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
10863 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10864 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10865 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10866 structural object class.
10867
10868 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
10869
10870 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10871 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10872 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10873 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10874 in the configuration.</p>
10875
10876 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10877 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10878 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10879 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10880 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10881 structure.</p>
10882
10883 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10884 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
10885
10886 <blockquote><pre>
10887 ou=services
10888   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10889     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10890     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10891       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10892         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10893     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10894       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10895         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10896     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10897       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10898 </pre></blockquote>
10899
10900 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10901 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10902 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10903 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
10904
10905 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10906 like this:</p>
10907
10908 <blockquote><pre>
10909 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10910 dc: hostname
10911 objectClass: top
10912 objectClass: dhcpHost
10913 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10914 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10915 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10916 arecord: 10.11.12.13
10917 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10918 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10919 </pre></blockquote>
10920
10921 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10922 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10923 auxiliary object class.</p>
10924
10925       </div>
10926       <div class="tags">
10927
10928
10929         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10930
10931
10932       </div>
10933     </div>
10934     <div class="padding"></div>
10935
10936     <div class="entry">
10937       <div class="title">
10938         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
10939       </div>
10940       <div class="date">
10941         14th July 2010
10942       </div>
10943       <div class="body">
10944         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10945 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10946 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10947 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10948 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
10949
10950 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10951 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
10952
10953 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10954 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
10955 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10956 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10957 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10958 to a slave DNS server.</p>
10959
10960 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10961 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10962 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10963 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10964 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
10965 seem to work.</p>
10966
10967 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10968 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10969 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
10970 this:</p>
10971
10972 <blockquote><pre>
10973   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10974   cn: hostname
10975   objectClass: dhcphost
10976   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10977   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10978   associateddomain: hostname.intern
10979   arecord: 10.11.12.13
10980   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10981   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10982   ldapconfigsound: Y
10983 </pre></blockquote>
10984
10985 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10986 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10987 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
10988 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
10989
10990 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10991 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10992 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10993 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10994 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10995 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10996 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10997 might be a good place to put it.</p>
10998
10999 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11000 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11001
11002       </div>
11003       <div class="tags">
11004
11005
11006         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11007
11008
11009       </div>
11010     </div>
11011     <div class="padding"></div>
11012
11013     <div class="entry">
11014       <div class="title">
11015         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
11016       </div>
11017       <div class="date">
11018         11th July 2010
11019       </div>
11020       <div class="body">
11021         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
11022 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
11023 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
11024 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
11025
11026 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
11027 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
11028 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
11029 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
11030 LTSP clients.</p>
11031
11032 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
11033 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
11034 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
11035
11036 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
11037 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
11038 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
11039
11040 <blockquote><pre>
11041 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
11042 #
11043 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
11044 #
11045 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
11046 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
11047 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
11048 #
11049 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
11050 # existence of attribute names.
11051 #
11052 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
11053 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
11054 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
11055 #
11056 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
11057 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
11058 #
11059 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
11060 #     SUP top
11061 #     AUXILIARY
11062 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
11063
11064 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
11065 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
11066     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
11067     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
11068         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
11069         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
11070             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
11071             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
11072             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
11073             # bass value on to clients
11074             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
11075         done
11076     done
11077 fi
11078 </pre></blockquote>
11079
11080 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
11081 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
11082 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
11083 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
11084 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
11085
11086 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11087 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11088
11089 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
11090 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
11091 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
11092 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
11093 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
11094 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
11095
11096       </div>
11097       <div class="tags">
11098
11099
11100         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11101
11102
11103       </div>
11104     </div>
11105     <div class="padding"></div>
11106
11107     <div class="entry">
11108       <div class="title">
11109         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11110       </div>
11111       <div class="date">
11112          9th July 2010
11113       </div>
11114       <div class="body">
11115         <p>Since
11116 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
11117 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
11118 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
11119 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
11120 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
11121 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
11122 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
11123 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
11124 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
11125 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
11126 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
11127 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
11128 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
11129
11130       </div>
11131       <div class="tags">
11132
11133
11134         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11135
11136
11137       </div>
11138     </div>
11139     <div class="padding"></div>
11140
11141     <div class="entry">
11142       <div class="title">
11143         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
11144       </div>
11145       <div class="date">
11146          3rd July 2010
11147       </div>
11148       <div class="body">
11149         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
11150 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
11151 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
11152 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
11153 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
11154 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
11155 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
11156 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
11157
11158 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
11159 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
11160 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
11161 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
11162 publish the difference.</p>
11163
11164 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11165
11166 <blockquote><p>
11167   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11168   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
11169   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
11170   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
11171   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
11172   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11173   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
11174   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
11175 </p></blockquote>
11176
11177 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11178
11179 <blockquote><p>
11180   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
11181   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
11182   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
11183   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
11184   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
11185   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
11186   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
11187   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
11188   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11189   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11190   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
11191   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
11192   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
11193   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
11194   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
11195   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
11196   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
11197   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
11198   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
11199   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
11200 </p></blockquote>
11201
11202 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11203
11204 <blockquote><p>
11205   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
11206   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
11207   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11208   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11209   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
11210   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
11211   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
11212   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11213   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11214   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11215   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11216   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
11217   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
11218   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
11219   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
11220   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
11221   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
11222   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
11223   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
11224   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
11225   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
11226 </p></blockquote>
11227
11228 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11229
11230 <blockquote><p>
11231   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
11232   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
11233   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
11234 </p></blockquote>
11235
11236 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
11237 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
11238 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
11239 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
11240 the difference somewhat.
11241
11242       </div>
11243       <div class="tags">
11244
11245
11246         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11247
11248
11249       </div>
11250     </div>
11251     <div class="padding"></div>
11252
11253     <div class="entry">
11254       <div class="title">
11255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11256       </div>
11257       <div class="date">
11258         28th June 2010
11259       </div>
11260       <div class="body">
11261         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
11262 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
11263 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
11264 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
11265 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
11266 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
11267 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
11268 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
11269 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
11270 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
11271
11272 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
11273 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
11274 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
11275 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
11276 released.</p>
11277
11278 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
11279 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
11280 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
11281 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
11282
11283 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
11284 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11285
11286 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
11287 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
11288 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
11289 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
11290 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
11291
11292       </div>
11293       <div class="tags">
11294
11295
11296         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11297
11298
11299       </div>
11300     </div>
11301     <div class="padding"></div>
11302
11303     <div class="entry">
11304       <div class="title">
11305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
11306       </div>
11307       <div class="date">
11308         24th June 2010
11309       </div>
11310       <div class="body">
11311         <p>A while back, I
11312 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11313 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11314 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11315 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
11316
11317 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11318 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11319 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11320 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
11321
11322 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11323 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11324 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11325 Debian Edu.</p>
11326
11327 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11328 the
11329 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11330 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11331 available today from IETF.</p>
11332
11333 <pre>
11334 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
11335 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
11336 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
11337  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11338         NAME 'dhcpHost'
11339         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11340 -       SUP top
11341 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
11342         MUST cn
11343         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11344         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11345 </pre>
11346
11347 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11348 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11349 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
11350
11351 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11352 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11353
11354       </div>
11355       <div class="tags">
11356
11357
11358         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11359
11360
11361       </div>
11362     </div>
11363     <div class="padding"></div>
11364
11365     <div class="entry">
11366       <div class="title">
11367         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
11368       </div>
11369       <div class="date">
11370         16th June 2010
11371       </div>
11372       <div class="body">
11373         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11374 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
11375 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11376 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11377 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11378 this:
11379
11380 <blockquote><pre>
11381 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11382 tasksel --new-install
11383 </pre></blockquote>
11384
11385 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11386 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11387 any output what so ever.
11388
11389 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11390 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11391 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11392 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11393 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11394 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
11395 code like this:
11396
11397 <blockquote><pre>
11398 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11399 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11400 $cmd
11401 </pre></blockquote>
11402
11403 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
11404 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11405 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11406 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11407 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11408 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11409 installation.</p>
11410
11411 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11412 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11413 like this.</p>
11414
11415       </div>
11416       <div class="tags">
11417
11418
11419         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
11420
11421
11422       </div>
11423     </div>
11424     <div class="padding"></div>
11425
11426     <div class="entry">
11427       <div class="title">
11428         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
11429       </div>
11430       <div class="date">
11431         13th June 2010
11432       </div>
11433       <div class="body">
11434         <p>My
11435 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
11436 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11437 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11438 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11439 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11440 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
11441 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11442
11443 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11444 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
11445 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11446 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11447 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11448 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11449 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11450 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11451
11452 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11453 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11454 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11455 too surprising.</p>
11456
11457 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11458 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
11459 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
11460 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11461 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11462 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
11463 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11464 continue.</p>
11465
11466 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11467 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11468   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11469   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11470   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11471   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11472   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11473   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11474   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11475   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11476   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11477   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11478   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11479   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11480   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11481   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11482   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11483   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11484   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11485   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11486   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11487   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11488   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11489   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11490   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11491   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11492   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11493   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11494   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11495   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11496
11497 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11498
11499 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11500   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11501   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11502   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11503   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11504   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11505   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11506   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11507   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11508   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11509   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11510   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11511   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11512   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11513   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11514   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11515   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11516   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11517   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11518   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11519   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11520   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11521   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11522   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11523   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11524   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11525   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11526   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11527   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11528   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11529   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11530   zip</p>
11531
11532 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11533
11534 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11535   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11536   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11537   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11538   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11539   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11540   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11541   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11542   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11543   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11544   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11545   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11546   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11547   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11548   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11549   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11550   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11551   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11552   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11553   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11554   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11555   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11556   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11557   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11558   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11559   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11560   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11561   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11562
11563 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11564 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11565   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11566   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11567   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11568   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11569   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11570   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11571   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11572   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11573   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11574   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11575   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11576   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11577   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11578   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11579   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11580   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11581   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11582   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11583   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11584   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11585   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11586   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11587   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11588   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11589   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11590   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11591   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11592   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11593   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11594   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11595   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11596   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11597   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11598   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11599   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11600   xulrunner-1.9</p>
11601
11602
11603       </div>
11604       <div class="tags">
11605
11606
11607         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11608
11609
11610       </div>
11611     </div>
11612     <div class="padding"></div>
11613
11614     <div class="entry">
11615       <div class="title">
11616         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11617       </div>
11618       <div class="date">
11619         11th June 2010
11620       </div>
11621       <div class="body">
11622         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11623 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
11624 have been discovered and reported in the process
11625 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11626 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11627 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
11628 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11629 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11630
11631 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11632 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11633 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11634 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11635 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11636 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11637
11638 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11639 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11640 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11641 is created.  The bug report
11642 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11643 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11644 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
11645 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11646 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
11647 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
11648 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11649 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11650 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
11651 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11652 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11653 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11654 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11655
11656 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
11657 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11658 trick:</p>
11659
11660 <blockquote><pre>
11661 #!/bin/sh
11662 set -ex
11663
11664 if [ "$1" ] ; then
11665     desktop=$1
11666 else
11667     desktop=gnome
11668 fi
11669
11670 from=lenny
11671 to=squeeze
11672
11673 exec &lt; /dev/null
11674 unset LANG
11675 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11676 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11677 fuser -mv .
11678 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11679 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11680 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
11681 #!/bin/sh
11682 exit 101
11683 EOF
11684 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11685 exit_cleanup() {
11686     umount $tmpdir/proc
11687 }
11688 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11689 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11690 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11691
11692 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11693
11694 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
11695 # to return the correct answers.
11696 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11697     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11698
11699 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11700 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11701     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
11702 #!/bin/sh
11703 exit 2
11704 EOF
11705     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11706 done
11707
11708 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11709 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11710 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11711 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11712
11713 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11714 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11715 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11716 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11717 fuser -mv
11718 </pre></blockquote>
11719
11720 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11721 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11722 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11723 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
11724 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11725 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
11726
11727 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11728 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11729 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
11730 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
11731 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11732 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
11733 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
11734
11735 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11736 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11737 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11738 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11739 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11740 packages.</p>
11741
11742       </div>
11743       <div class="tags">
11744
11745
11746         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11747
11748
11749       </div>
11750     </div>
11751     <div class="padding"></div>
11752
11753     <div class="entry">
11754       <div class="title">
11755         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
11756       </div>
11757       <div class="date">
11758          6th June 2010
11759       </div>
11760       <div class="body">
11761         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11762 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11763 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
11764 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11765 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
11766 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11767 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
11768
11769 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11770 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11771 COLUMNS):</p>
11772
11773 <blockquote><pre>
11774 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
11775 previous=N
11776 PREVLEVEL=
11777 RUNLEVEL=
11778 runlevel=S
11779 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11780 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
11781 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11782 </pre></blockquote>
11783
11784 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11785 script.</p>
11786
11787 <blockquote><pre>
11788 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
11789 previous=N
11790 PREVLEVEL=N
11791 RUNLEVEL=S
11792 runlevel=S
11793 </pre></blockquote>
11794
11795 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11796 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
11797 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
11798
11799 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11800 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11801 choice.</p>
11802
11803       </div>
11804       <div class="tags">
11805
11806
11807         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11808
11809
11810       </div>
11811     </div>
11812     <div class="padding"></div>
11813
11814     <div class="entry">
11815       <div class="title">
11816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
11817       </div>
11818       <div class="date">
11819          6th June 2010
11820       </div>
11821       <div class="body">
11822         <p>Via the
11823 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11824 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11825 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11826 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
11827 following the standards wars of today.</p>
11828
11829       </div>
11830       <div class="tags">
11831
11832
11833         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
11834
11835
11836       </div>
11837     </div>
11838     <div class="padding"></div>
11839
11840     <div class="entry">
11841       <div class="title">
11842         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
11843       </div>
11844       <div class="date">
11845          3rd June 2010
11846       </div>
11847       <div class="body">
11848         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11849 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11850 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
11851 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11852 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
11853
11854 <blockquote><pre>
11855 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11856   vendor                    count
11857   Dell Computer Corporation     1
11858     PowerEdge 1750              1
11859   IBM                           1
11860     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
11861   Intel                         2
11862   [no-dmi-info]                 3
11863 maintainer:~#
11864 </pre></blockquote>
11865
11866 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11867 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
11868 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11869 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
11870 option to list the individual machines.</p>
11871
11872 <p>A larger list is
11873 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11874 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11875 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
11876 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11877 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11878 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11879 collector.</p>
11880
11881       </div>
11882       <div class="tags">
11883
11884
11885         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
11886
11887
11888       </div>
11889     </div>
11890     <div class="padding"></div>
11891
11892     <div class="entry">
11893       <div class="title">
11894         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
11895       </div>
11896       <div class="date">
11897          1st June 2010
11898       </div>
11899       <div class="body">
11900         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11901 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
11902 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11903 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11904 wait.</p>
11905
11906 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11907 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
11908 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11909 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11910 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
11911 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
11912
11913 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11914 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11915 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
11916 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11917 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11918 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11919 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
11920 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
11921
11922 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
11923
11924       </div>
11925       <div class="tags">
11926
11927
11928         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11929
11930
11931       </div>
11932     </div>
11933     <div class="padding"></div>
11934
11935     <div class="entry">
11936       <div class="title">
11937         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
11938       </div>
11939       <div class="date">
11940         27th May 2010
11941       </div>
11942       <div class="body">
11943         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11944 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11945 issues are known and should be solved:
11946
11947 <p><ul>
11948
11949 <li>The wicd package seen to
11950 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
11951 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
11952 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11953 seem to be on the case.</li>
11954
11955 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11956 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
11957 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
11958 maintainer is on the case.</li>
11959
11960 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11961 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11962 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
11963 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11964 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11965 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11966 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11967 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
11968
11969 </ul></p>
11970
11971 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11972 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
11973 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11974 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
11975
11976 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11977 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11978 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11979 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11980
11981 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
11982
11983       </div>
11984       <div class="tags">
11985
11986
11987         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11988
11989
11990       </div>
11991     </div>
11992     <div class="padding"></div>
11993
11994     <div class="entry">
11995       <div class="title">
11996         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
11997       </div>
11998       <div class="date">
11999         22nd May 2010
12000       </div>
12001       <div class="body">
12002         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
12003 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
12004 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
12005 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
12006
12007 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
12008 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
12009 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
12010 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
12011 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
12012 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
12013 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
12014 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
12015 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
12016 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
12017 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
12018 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
12019 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
12020 going to work.</p>
12021
12022 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
12023 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
12024 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
12025 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
12026 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
12027 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
12028 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
12029 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
12030 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
12031 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
12032 Edu.</p>
12033
12034 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
12035 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
12036 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
12037 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
12038 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
12039 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
12040
12041 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
12042 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
12043
12044       </div>
12045       <div class="tags">
12046
12047
12048         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12049
12050
12051       </div>
12052     </div>
12053     <div class="padding"></div>
12054
12055     <div class="entry">
12056       <div class="title">
12057         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
12058       </div>
12059       <div class="date">
12060         14th May 2010
12061       </div>
12062       <div class="body">
12063         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
12064 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
12065 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
12066 expected, if I am to believe the
12067 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12068 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
12069 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
12070 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
12071 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
12072 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
12073 version.</p>
12074
12075 More information about
12076 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12077 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
12078 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
12079 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12080
12081 <blockquote><pre>
12082 CONCURRENCY=none
12083 </pre></blockquote>
12084
12085 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12086 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12087 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12088 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12089
12090       </div>
12091       <div class="tags">
12092
12093
12094         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12095
12096
12097       </div>
12098     </div>
12099     <div class="padding"></div>
12100
12101     <div class="entry">
12102       <div class="title">
12103         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
12104       </div>
12105       <div class="date">
12106         14th May 2010
12107       </div>
12108       <div class="body">
12109         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
12110 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
12111 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
12112 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
12113 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
12114 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
12115 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
12116 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
12117
12118 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
12119 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
12120 this on the collector host:</p>
12121
12122 <blockquote><pre>
12123 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
12124 </pre></blockquote>
12125
12126 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
12127 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
12128
12129 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
12130 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
12131 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
12132 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
12133 written yet.</p>
12134
12135       </div>
12136       <div class="tags">
12137
12138
12139         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
12140
12141
12142       </div>
12143     </div>
12144     <div class="padding"></div>
12145
12146     <div class="entry">
12147       <div class="title">
12148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
12149       </div>
12150       <div class="date">
12151         13th May 2010
12152       </div>
12153       <div class="body">
12154         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
12155 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
12156 has been
12157 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
12158
12159 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
12160 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
12161 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
12162 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
12163 based boot system.  Tollef is
12164 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
12165 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
12166 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
12167 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
12168 at the moment do not.</p>
12169
12170 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
12171 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
12172 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
12173 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
12174 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
12175 way forward.</p>
12176
12177 <p>In the mean time, based on the
12178 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12179 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
12180 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
12181 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
12182 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
12183 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
12184 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
12185 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
12186
12187       </div>
12188       <div class="tags">
12189
12190
12191         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12192
12193
12194       </div>
12195     </div>
12196     <div class="padding"></div>
12197
12198     <div class="entry">
12199       <div class="title">
12200         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
12201       </div>
12202       <div class="date">
12203          6th May 2010
12204       </div>
12205       <div class="body">
12206         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
12207 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
12208 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
12209 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
12210 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12211 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
12212 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12213
12214 <blockquote><pre>
12215 CONCURRENCY=makefile
12216 </pre></blockquote>
12217
12218 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
12219 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
12220 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
12221 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
12222 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
12223 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
12224 make this happen.</p>
12225
12226 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
12227 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
12228 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
12229 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
12230 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
12231
12232 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
12233 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
12234 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
12235 fix the remaining issues.</p>
12236
12237 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12238 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12239 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12240 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12241
12242       </div>
12243       <div class="tags">
12244
12245
12246         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12247
12248
12249       </div>
12250     </div>
12251     <div class="padding"></div>
12252
12253     <div class="entry">
12254       <div class="title">
12255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
12256       </div>
12257       <div class="date">
12258         27th July 2009
12259       </div>
12260       <div class="body">
12261         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
12262 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12263 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
12264 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12265 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12266 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12267 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
12268
12269 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12270 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12271 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
12272
12273       </div>
12274       <div class="tags">
12275
12276
12277         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12278
12279
12280       </div>
12281     </div>
12282     <div class="padding"></div>
12283
12284     <div class="entry">
12285       <div class="title">
12286         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
12287       </div>
12288       <div class="date">
12289         22nd July 2009
12290       </div>
12291       <div class="body">
12292         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12293 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12294 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
12295 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12296 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12297 the package up to date.</p>
12298
12299 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12300 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
12301 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12302 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12303 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12304 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
12305 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12306 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
12307 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
12308 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12309 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12310 working on the future release.</p>
12311
12312 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12313 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
12314
12315       </div>
12316       <div class="tags">
12317
12318
12319         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12320
12321
12322       </div>
12323     </div>
12324     <div class="padding"></div>
12325
12326     <div class="entry">
12327       <div class="title">
12328         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
12329       </div>
12330       <div class="date">
12331         24th June 2009
12332       </div>
12333       <div class="body">
12334         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12335 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12336 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
12337 funded
12338 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12339 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
12340 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12341 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12342 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12343 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
12344
12345 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12346 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
12347 boot:</p>
12348
12349 <ul>
12350
12351 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
12352
12353 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12354    clock is in UTC.</li>
12355
12356 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12357    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12358    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
12359
12360 </ul>
12361
12362 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12363 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12364 Villegas</a>.
12365
12366 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12367 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
12368 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
12369 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12370 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12371 using this.</p>
12372
12373 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12374 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12375 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12376 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12377 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
12378 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12379 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
12380
12381       </div>
12382       <div class="tags">
12383
12384
12385         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12386
12387
12388       </div>
12389     </div>
12390     <div class="padding"></div>
12391
12392     <div class="entry">
12393       <div class="title">
12394         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
12395       </div>
12396       <div class="date">
12397         17th May 2009
12398       </div>
12399       <div class="body">
12400         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
12401 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
12402 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
12403 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
12404 dager siden kom
12405 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
12406 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
12407 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
12408 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
12409 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
12410
12411 <blockquote>
12412 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
12413 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
12414 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
12415 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
12416 </blockquote>
12417
12418 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
12419 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
12420 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
12421 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
12422 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
12423
12424 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
12425 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
12426 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
12427
12428       </div>
12429       <div class="tags">
12430
12431
12432         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
12433
12434
12435       </div>
12436     </div>
12437     <div class="padding"></div>
12438
12439     <div class="entry">
12440       <div class="title">
12441         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
12442       </div>
12443       <div class="date">
12444          7th May 2009
12445       </div>
12446       <div class="body">
12447         <p>Kom over
12448 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
12449 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
12450 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
12451 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
12452 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
12453 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
12454 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
12455
12456       </div>
12457       <div class="tags">
12458
12459
12460         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12461
12462
12463       </div>
12464     </div>
12465     <div class="padding"></div>
12466
12467     <div class="entry">
12468       <div class="title">
12469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
12470       </div>
12471       <div class="date">
12472          2nd May 2009
12473       </div>
12474       <div class="body">
12475         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
12476 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
12477 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
12478 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
12479 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
12480 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
12481 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
12482 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
12483 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
12484 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
12485 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
12486 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
12487 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
12488 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
12489 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
12490 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
12491 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
12492 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
12493 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
12494 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
12495
12496 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
12497 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
12498 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
12499 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
12500 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
12501 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
12502 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
12503 betydelige.</p>
12504
12505       </div>
12506       <div class="tags">
12507
12508
12509         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12510
12511
12512       </div>
12513     </div>
12514     <div class="padding"></div>
12515
12516     <div class="entry">
12517       <div class="title">
12518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
12519       </div>
12520       <div class="date">
12521          2nd May 2009
12522       </div>
12523       <div class="body">
12524         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12525 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12526 do not yet know them.</p>
12527
12528 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
12529 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12530 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12531 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
12532 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
12533 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12534 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12535 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12536 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
12537 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12538 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12539
12540 <p>The second one is
12541 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
12542 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
12543 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
12544 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12545 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
12546 and the company behind it is running
12547 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
12548 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12549 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
12550 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12551 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12552 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
12553 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12554 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
12555
12556 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12557 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12558 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12559 surrounded by today.</p>
12560
12561       </div>
12562       <div class="tags">
12563
12564
12565         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12566
12567
12568       </div>
12569     </div>
12570     <div class="padding"></div>
12571
12572     <div class="entry">
12573       <div class="title">
12574         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
12575       </div>
12576       <div class="date">
12577         28th April 2009
12578       </div>
12579       <div class="body">
12580         <p>Julien Blache
12581 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
12582 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
12583 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12584 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12585 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
12586 properties.</p>
12587
12588       </div>
12589       <div class="tags">
12590
12591
12592         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12593
12594
12595       </div>
12596     </div>
12597     <div class="padding"></div>
12598
12599     <div class="entry">
12600       <div class="title">
12601         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
12602       </div>
12603       <div class="date">
12604         30th March 2009
12605       </div>
12606       <div class="body">
12607         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12608 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
12609 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12610 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12611 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12612 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12613 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12614 application.</p>
12615
12616 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12617 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
12618 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12619 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
12620 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12621 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12622 blocked from doing so.</p>
12623
12624 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12625 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12626 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12627 requirements change.</p>
12628
12629 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12630 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12631 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
12632
12633       </div>
12634       <div class="tags">
12635
12636
12637         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
12638
12639
12640       </div>
12641     </div>
12642     <div class="padding"></div>
12643
12644     <div class="entry">
12645       <div class="title">
12646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
12647       </div>
12648       <div class="date">
12649         29th March 2009
12650       </div>
12651       <div class="body">
12652         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12653 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
12654 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12655 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
12656 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12657 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
12658 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12659 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
12660 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12661 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
12662 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
12663 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12664 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
12665 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
12666 now. :)</p>
12667
12668       </div>
12669       <div class="tags">
12670
12671
12672         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12673
12674
12675       </div>
12676     </div>
12677     <div class="padding"></div>
12678
12679     <div class="entry">
12680       <div class="title">
12681         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
12682       </div>
12683       <div class="date">
12684         29th March 2009
12685       </div>
12686       <div class="body">
12687         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12688 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12689 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
12690 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
12691 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12692 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
12693
12694 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
12695 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12696 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12697 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
12698 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12699 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12700 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12701 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
12702 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12703 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12704 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12705 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
12706 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
12707
12708 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12709 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12710 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12711 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
12712
12713 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12714 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
12715
12716 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12717 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
12718 new IETF work group?</p>
12719
12720       </div>
12721       <div class="tags">
12722
12723
12724         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
12725
12726
12727       </div>
12728     </div>
12729     <div class="padding"></div>
12730
12731     <div class="entry">
12732       <div class="title">
12733         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
12734       </div>
12735       <div class="date">
12736         15th February 2009
12737       </div>
12738       <div class="body">
12739         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
12740 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
12741 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
12742 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
12743 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
12744 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
12745 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
12746 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
12747 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
12748 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
12749 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
12750 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
12751
12752       </div>
12753       <div class="tags">
12754
12755
12756         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
12757
12758
12759       </div>
12760     </div>
12761     <div class="padding"></div>
12762
12763     <div class="entry">
12764       <div class="title">
12765         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
12766       </div>
12767       <div class="date">
12768          7th December 2008
12769       </div>
12770       <div class="body">
12771         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12772 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12773 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12774 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
12775 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12776 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
12777 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12778 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
12779
12780 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12781 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12782 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12783 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12784 of these cards.</p>
12785
12786       </div>
12787       <div class="tags">
12788
12789
12790         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
12791
12792
12793       </div>
12794     </div>
12795     <div class="padding"></div>
12796
12797     <div class="entry">
12798       <div class="title">
12799         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
12800       </div>
12801       <div class="date">
12802         25th November 2008
12803       </div>
12804       <div class="body">
12805         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12806 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12807 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12808 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12809 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
12810 notes are available on
12811 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12812 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12813 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12814 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
12815 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12816 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
12817 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12818 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
12819 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
12820
12821 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
12822 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
12823
12824       </div>
12825       <div class="tags">
12826
12827
12828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
12829
12830
12831       </div>
12832     </div>
12833     <div class="padding"></div>
12834
12835     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
12836     <div id="sidebar">
12837
12838
12839
12840 <h2>Archive</h2>
12841 <ul>
12842
12843 <li>2018
12844 <ul>
12845
12846 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
12847
12848 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
12849
12850 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (2)</a></li>
12851
12852 </ul></li>
12853
12854 <li>2017
12855 <ul>
12856
12857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
12858
12859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
12860
12861 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
12862
12863 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
12864
12865 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
12866
12867 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
12868
12869 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
12870
12871 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
12872
12873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
12874
12875 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12876
12877 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
12878
12879 </ul></li>
12880
12881 <li>2016
12882 <ul>
12883
12884 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
12885
12886 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
12887
12888 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12889
12890 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
12891
12892 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
12893
12894 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12895
12896 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
12897
12898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
12899
12900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
12901
12902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
12903
12904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
12905
12906 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
12907
12908 </ul></li>
12909
12910 <li>2015
12911 <ul>
12912
12913 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12914
12915 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12916
12917 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
12918
12919 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
12920
12921 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12922
12923 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
12924
12925 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
12926
12927 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
12928
12929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
12930
12931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12932
12933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
12934
12935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12936
12937 </ul></li>
12938
12939 <li>2014
12940 <ul>
12941
12942 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12943
12944 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
12945
12946 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
12947
12948 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12949
12950 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
12951
12952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12953
12954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
12955
12956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
12957
12958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
12959
12960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
12961
12962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12963
12964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
12965
12966 </ul></li>
12967
12968 <li>2013
12969 <ul>
12970
12971 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
12972
12973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
12974
12975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
12976
12977 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
12978
12979 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12980
12981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
12982
12983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12984
12985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12986
12987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
12988
12989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
12990
12991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
12992
12993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12994
12995 </ul></li>
12996
12997 <li>2012
12998 <ul>
12999
13000 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
13001
13002 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
13003
13004 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
13005
13006 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
13007
13008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
13009
13010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
13011
13012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
13013
13014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13015
13016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
13017
13018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
13019
13020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
13021
13022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13023
13024 </ul></li>
13025
13026 <li>2011
13027 <ul>
13028
13029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
13030
13031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
13032
13033 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
13034
13035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
13036
13037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
13038
13039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13040
13041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
13042
13043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13044
13045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
13046
13047 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13048
13049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13050
13051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
13052
13053 </ul></li>
13054
13055 <li>2010
13056 <ul>
13057
13058 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
13059
13060 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
13061
13062 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
13063
13064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
13065
13066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13067
13068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
13069
13070 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
13071
13072 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
13073
13074 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
13075
13076 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
13077
13078 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
13079
13080 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
13081
13082 </ul></li>
13083
13084 <li>2009
13085 <ul>
13086
13087 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
13088
13089 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
13090
13091 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
13092
13093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
13094
13095 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13096
13097 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
13098
13099 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
13100
13101 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13102
13103 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
13104
13105 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13106
13107 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13108
13109 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13110
13111 </ul></li>
13112
13113 <li>2008
13114 <ul>
13115
13116 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
13117
13118 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13119
13120 </ul></li>
13121
13122 </ul>
13123
13124
13125
13126 <h2>Tags</h2>
13127 <ul>
13128
13129  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (16)</a></li>
13130
13131  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
13132
13133  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
13134
13135  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
13136
13137  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
13138
13139  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
13140
13141  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
13142
13143  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
13144
13145  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (156)</a></li>
13146
13147  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (158)</a></li>
13148
13149  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (4)</a></li>
13150
13151  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
13152
13153  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (17)</a></li>
13154
13155  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (25)</a></li>
13156
13157  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
13158
13159  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (370)</a></li>
13160
13161  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
13162
13163  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (13)</a></li>
13164
13165  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (32)</a></li>
13166
13167  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
13168
13169  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
13170
13171  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
13172
13173  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
13174
13175  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (15)</a></li>
13176
13177  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (20)</a></li>
13178
13179  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
13180
13181  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (4)</a></li>
13182
13183  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
13184
13185  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
13186
13187  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
13188
13189  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
13190
13191  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
13192
13193  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (9)</a></li>
13194
13195  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (295)</a></li>
13196
13197  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (190)</a></li>
13198
13199  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (33)</a></li>
13200
13201  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
13202
13203  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (71)</a></li>
13204
13205  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (104)</a></li>
13206
13207  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
13208
13209  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
13210
13211  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
13212
13213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
13214
13215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (10)</a></li>
13216
13217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
13218
13219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (6)</a></li>
13220
13221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
13222
13223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (53)</a></li>
13224
13225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
13226
13227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
13228
13229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (55)</a></li>
13230
13231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (6)</a></li>
13232
13233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (12)</a></li>
13234
13235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (53)</a></li>
13236
13237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (4)</a></li>
13238
13239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
13240
13241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
13242
13243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (11)</a></li>
13244
13245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (62)</a></li>
13246
13247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
13248
13249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (40)</a></li>
13250
13251 </ul>
13252
13253
13254     </div>
13255     <p style="text-align: right">
13256  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
13257 </p>
13258
13259   </body>
13260 </html>