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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_did_I_learn_from_OpenSnitch_this_summer_.html">What did I learn from OpenSnitch this summer?</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         11th June 2023
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>With yesterdays
  32 <a href="https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610">release of Debian
  33 12 Bookworm</a>, I am happy to know the
  34 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
  35 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> is available for a wider audience.
  36 I have been running it for a few weeks now, and have been surprised
  37 about some of the programs connecting to the Internet.  Some programs
  38 are obviously calling out from my machine, like the NTP network based
  39 clock adjusting system and Tor to reach other Tor clients, but others
  40 were more dubious.  For example, the KDE Window manager try to look up
  41 the host name in DNS, for no apparent reason, but if this lookup is
  42 blocked the KDE desktop get periodically stuck when I use it.  Another
  43 surprise was how much Firefox call home directly to mozilla.com,
  44 mozilla.net and googleapis.com, to mention a few, when I visit other
  45 web pages.  This direct connection happen even if I told Firefox to
  46 always use a proxy, and the proxy setting is ignored for this traffic.
  47 Other surprising connections come from audacity and dirmngr (I do not
  48 use Gnome).  It took some trial and error to get a good default set of
  49 permissions.  Without it, I would get popups asking for permissions at
  50 any time, also the most inconvenient ones where I am in the middle of
  51 a time sensitive gaming session.</p>
  52
  53 <p>I suspect some application developers should rethink when then need
  54 to use network connections or DNS lookups, and recommend testing
  55 OpenSnitch (only <tt>apt install opensnitch</tt> away in Debian
  56 Bookworm) to locate and report any surprising Internet connections on
  57 your desktop machine.</p>
  58
  59 <p>At the moment the upstream developer and Debian package maintainer
  60 is working on making the system more reliable in Debian, by enabling
  61 the eBPF kernel module to track processes and connections instead of
  62 depending in content in /proc/.  This should enter unstable fairly
  63 soon.</p>
  64
  65 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  66 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  67 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  68
  69 <p><strong>Update 2023-06-12</strong>: I got a tip about
  70 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues">a list of privacy
  71 issues in Free Software</a> and the
  72 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-privacy">#debian-privacy IRC
  73 channel</a> discussing these topics.</p>
  74
  75
  76       </div>
  77       <div class="tags">
  78
  79
  80         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
  81
  82
  83       </div>
  84     </div>
  85     <div class="padding"></div>
  86
  87     <div class="entry">
  88       <div class="title">
  89         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/wmbusmeters__parse_data_from_your_utility_meter___nice_free_software.html">wmbusmeters, parse data from your utility meter - nice free software</a>
  90       </div>
  91       <div class="date">
  92         19th May 2023
  93       </div>
  94       <div class="body">
  95         <p>There is a European standard for reading utility meters like water,
  96 gas, electricity or heat distribution meters.  The
  97 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter-Bus">Meter-Bus standard
  98 (EN 13757-2, EN 13757-3 and EN 13757–4)</a> provide a cross vendor way
  99 to talk to and collect meter data.  I ran into this standard when I
 100 wanted to monitor some heat distribution meters, and managed to find
 101 free software that could do the job.  The meters in question broadcast
 102 encrypted messages with meter information via radio, and the hardest
 103 part was to track down the encryption keys from the vendor.  With this
 104 in place I could set up a MQTT gateway to submit the meter data for
 105 graphing.</p>
 106
 107 <p>The free software systems in question,
 108 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rtl-wmbus">rtl-wmbus</a> to
 109 read the messages from a software defined radio, and
 110 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/wmbusmeters">wmbusmeters</a> to
 111 decrypt and decode the content of the messages, is working very well
 112 and allowe me to get frequent updates from my meters.  I got in touch
 113 with upstream last year to see if there was any interest in publishing
 114 the packages via Debian.  I was very happy to learn that Fredrik
 115 Öhrström volunteered to maintain the packages, and I have since
 116 assisted him in getting Debian package build rules in place as well as
 117 sponsoring the packages into the Debian archive.  Sadly we completed
 118 it too late for them to become part of the next stable Debian release
 119 (Bookworm).  The wmbusmeters package just cleared the NEW queue.  It
 120 will need some work to fix a built problem, but I expect Fredrik will
 121 find a solution soon.</p>
 122
 123 <p>If you got a infrastructure meter supporting the Meter Bus
 124 standard, I strongly recommend having a look at these nice
 125 packages.</p>
 126
 127 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 128 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 129 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 130
 131       </div>
 132       <div class="tags">
 133
 134
 135         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 136
 137
 138       </div>
 139     </div>
 140     <div class="padding"></div>
 141
 142     <div class="entry">
 143       <div class="title">
 144         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_2023_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html">The 2023 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering</a>
 145       </div>
 146       <div class="date">
 147         14th May 2023
 148       </div>
 149       <div class="body">
 150         <p>The LinuxCNC project is making headway these days.  A lot of
 151 patches and issues have seen activity on
 152 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/">the project github
 153 pages</a> recently.  A few weeks ago there was a developer gathering
 154 over at the <a href="https://tormach.com/">Tormach</a> headquarter in
 155 Wisconsin, and now we are planning a new gathering in Norway.  If you
 156 wonder what LinuxCNC is, lets quote Wikipedia:</p>
 157
 158 <blockquote>
 159 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
 160 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
 161 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
 162 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
 163 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
 164 interactive development)."
 165 </blockquote>
 166
 167 <p>The Norwegian developer gathering take place the weekend June 16th
 168 to 18th this year, and is open for everyone interested in contributing
 169 to LinuxCNC.  Up to date information about the gathering can be found
 170 in
 171 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/emc/mailman/emc-developers/thread/sa64jp06nob.fsf%40hjemme.reinholdtsen.name/#msg37837251">the
 172 developer mailing list thread</a> where the gathering was announced.
 173 Thanks to the good people at
 174 <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>,
 175 <a href="https://www.redpill-linpro.com/">Redpill-Linpro</a> and
 176 <a href="https://www.nuugfoundation.no/no/">NUUG Foundation</a>, we
 177 have enough sponsor funds to pay for food, and shelter for the people
 178 traveling from afar to join us.  If you would like to join the
 179 gathering, get in touch.</p>
 180
 181 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 182 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 183 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 184
 185       </div>
 186       <div class="tags">
 187
 188
 189         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>.
 190
 191
 192       </div>
 193     </div>
 194     <div class="padding"></div>
 195
 196     <div class="entry">
 197       <div class="title">
 198         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenSnitch_in_Debian_ready_for_prime_time.html">OpenSnitch in Debian ready for prime time</a>
 199       </div>
 200       <div class="date">
 201         13th May 2023
 202       </div>
 203       <div class="body">
 204         <p>A bit delayed,
 205 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
 206 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> package in Debian now got the
 207 latest fixes ready for Debian Bookworm.  Because it depend on a
 208 package missing on some architectures, the autopkgtest check of the
 209 testing migration script did not understand that the tests were
 210 actually working, so the migration was delayed.  A bug in the package
 211 dependencies is also fixed, so those installing the firewall package
 212 (opensnitch) now also get the GUI admin tool (python3-opensnitch-ui)
 213 installed by default.  I am very grateful to Gustavo Iñiguez Goya for
 214 his work on getting the package ready for Debian Bookworm.</p>
 215
 216 <p>Armed with this package I have discovered some surprising
 217 connections from programs I believed were able to work completly
 218 offline, and it has already proven its worth, at least to me.  If you
 219 too want to get more familiar with the kind of programs using
 220 Internett connections on your machine, I recommend testing <tt>apt
 221 install opensnitch</tt> in Bookworm and see what you think.</p>
 222
 223 <p>The package is still not able to build its eBPF module within
 224 Debian.  Not sure how much work it would be to get it working, but
 225 suspect some kernel related packages need to be extended with more
 226 header files to get it working.</p>
 227
 228 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 229 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 230 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 231
 232       </div>
 233       <div class="tags">
 234
 235
 236         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 237
 238
 239       </div>
 240     </div>
 241     <div class="padding"></div>
 242
 243     <div class="entry">
 244       <div class="title">
 245         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speech_to_text__she_APTly_whispered__how_hard_can_it_be_.html">Speech to text, she APTly whispered, how hard can it be?</a>
 246       </div>
 247       <div class="date">
 248         23rd April 2023
 249       </div>
 250       <div class="body">
 251         <p>While visiting a convention during Easter, it occurred to me that
 252 it would be great if I could have a digital Dictaphone with
 253 transcribing capabilities, providing me with texts to cut-n-paste into
 254 stuff I need to write.  The background is that long drives often bring
 255 up the urge to write on texts I am working on, which of course is out
 256 of the question while driving.  With the release of
 257 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/">OpenAI Whisper</a>, this
 258 seem to be within reach with Free Software, so I decided to give it a
 259 go.  OpenAI Whisper is a Linux based neural network system to read in
 260 audio files and provide text representation of the speech in that
 261 audio recording.  It handle multiple languages and according to its
 262 creators even can translate into a different language than the spoken
 263 one.  I have not tested the latter feature.  It can either use the CPU
 264 or a GPU with CUDA support.  As far as I can tell, CUDA in practice
 265 limit that feature to NVidia graphics cards.  I have few of those, as
 266 they do not work great with free software drivers, and have not tested
 267 the GPU option.  While looking into the matter, I did discover some
 268 work to provide CUDA support on non-NVidia GPUs, and some work with
 269 the library used by Whisper to port it to other GPUs, but have not
 270 spent much time looking into GPU support yet.  I've so far used an old
 271 X220 laptop as my test machine, and only transcribed using its
 272 CPU.</p>
 273
 274 <p>As it from a privacy standpoint is unthinkable to use computers
 275 under control of someone else (aka a "cloud" service) to transcribe
 276 ones thoughts and personal notes, I want to run the transcribing
 277 system locally on my own computers.  The only sensible approach to me
 278 is to make the effort I put into this available for any Linux user and
 279 to upload the needed packages into Debian.  Looking at Debian Bookworm, I
 280 discovered that only three packages were missing,
 281 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034307">tiktoken</a>,
 282 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034144">triton</a>, and
 283 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034091">openai-whisper</a>.  For a while
 284 I also believed
 285 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034286">ffmpeg-python</a> was
 286 needed, but as its
 287 <a href="https://github.com/kkroening/ffmpeg-python/issues/760">upstream
 288 seem to have vanished</a> I found it safer
 289 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1242">to rewrite
 290 whisper</a> to stop depending on in than to introduce ffmpeg-python
 291 into Debian.  I decided to place these packages under the umbrella of
 292 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team">the Debian Deep
 293 Learning Team</a>, which seem like the best team to look after such
 294 packages.  Discussing the topic within the group also made me aware
 295 that the triton package was already a future dependency of newer
 296 versions of the torch package being planned, and would be needed after
 297 Bookworm is released.</p>
 298
 299 <p>All required code packages have been now waiting in
 300 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the Debian NEW
 301 queue</a> since Wednesday, heading for Debian Experimental until
 302 Bookworm is released.  An unsolved issue is how to handle the neural
 303 network models used by Whisper.  The default behaviour of Whisper is
 304 to require Internet connectivity and download the model requested to
 305 <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt> on first invocation.  This obviously would
 306 fail <a href="https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html">the
 307 deserted island test of free software</a> as the Debian packages would
 308 be unusable for someone stranded with only the Debian archive and solar
 309 powered computer on a deserted island.</p>
 310
 311 <p>Because of this, I would love to include the models in the Debian
 312 mirror system.  This is problematic, as the models are very large
 313 files, which would put a heavy strain on the Debian mirror
 314 infrastructure around the globe.  The strain would be even higher if
 315 the models change often, which luckily as far as I can tell they do
 316 not.  The small model, which according to its creator is most useful
 317 for English and in my experience is not doing a great job there
 318 either, is 462 MiB (deb is 414 MiB).  The medium model, which to me
 319 seem to handle English speech fairly well is 1.5 GiB (deb is 1.3 GiB)
 320 and the large model is 2.9 GiB (deb is 2.6 GiB).  I would assume
 321 everyone with enough resources would prefer to use the large model for
 322 highest quality.  I believe the models themselves would have to go
 323 into the non-free part of the Debian archive, as they are not really
 324 including any useful source code for updating the models.  The
 325 "source", aka the model training set, according to the creators
 326 consist of "680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised
 327 data collected from the web", which to me reads material with both
 328 unknown copyright terms, unavailable to the general public.  In other
 329 words, the source is not available according to the Debian Free
 330 Software Guidelines and the model should be considered non-free.</p>
 331
 332 <p>I asked the Debian FTP masters for advice regarding uploading a
 333 model package on their IRC channel, and based on the feedback there it
 334 is still unclear to me if such package would be accepted into the
 335 archive.  In any case I wrote build rules for a
 336 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team/openai-whisper-model">OpenAI
 337 Whisper model package</a> and
 338 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1257">modified the
 339 Whisper code base</a> to prefer shared files under <tt>/usr/</tt> and
 340 <tt>/var/</tt> over user specific files in <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt>
 341 to be able to use these model packages, to prepare for such
 342 possibility.  One solution might be to include only one of the models
 343 (small or medium, I guess) in the Debian archive, and ask people to
 344 download the others from the Internet.  Not quite sure what to do
 345 here, and advice is most welcome (use the debian-ai mailing list).</p>
 346
 347 <p>To make it easier to test the new packages while I wait for them to
 348 clear the NEW queue, I created an APT source targeting bookworm.  I
 349 selected Bookworm instead of Bullseye, even though I know the latter
 350 would reach more users, is that some of the required dependencies are
 351 missing from Bullseye and I during this phase of testing did not want
 352 to backport a lot of packages just to get up and running.</p>
 353
 354 <p>Here is a recipe to run as user root if you want to test OpenAI
 355 Whisper using Debian packages on your Debian Bookworm installation,
 356 first adding the APT repository GPG key to the list of trusted keys,
 357 then setting up the APT repository and finally installing the packages
 358 and one of the models:</p>
 359
 360 <p><pre>
 361 curl https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/D78F5C4796F353D211B119E28200D9B589641240.asc \
 362   -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/pere-whisper.asc
 363 mkdir -p /etc/apt/sources.list.d
 364 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pere-whisper.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 365 deb https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 366 deb-src https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 367 EOF
 368 apt update
 369 apt install openai-whisper
 370 </pre></p>
 371
 372 <p>The package work for me, but have not yet been tested on any other
 373 computer than my own.  With it, I have been able to (badly) transcribe
 374 a 2 minute 40 second Norwegian audio clip to test using the small
 375 model.  This took 11 minutes and around 2.2 GiB of RAM.  Transcribing
 376 the same file with the medium model gave a accurate text in 77 minutes
 377 using around 5.2 GiB of RAM.  My test machine had too little memory to
 378 test the large model, which I believe require 11 GiB of RAM.  In
 379 short, this now work for me using Debian packages, and I hope it will
 380 for you and everyone else once the packages enter Debian.</p>
 381
 382 <p>Now I can start on the audio recording part of this project.</p>
 383
 384 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 385 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 386 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 387
 388       </div>
 389       <div class="tags">
 390
 391
 392         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 393
 394
 395       </div>
 396     </div>
 397     <div class="padding"></div>
 398
 399     <div class="entry">
 400       <div class="title">
 401         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/rtlsdr_scanner__software_defined_radio_frequency_scanner_for_Linux____nice_free_software.html">rtlsdr-scanner, software defined radio frequency scanner for Linux  - nice free software</a>
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="date">
 404          7th April 2023
 405       </div>
 406       <div class="body">
 407         <p>Today I finally found time to track down a useful radio frequency
 408 scanner for my software defined radio.  Just for fun I tried to locate
 409 the radios used in the areas, and a good start would be to scan all
 410 the frequencies to see what is in use.  I've tried to find a useful
 411 program earlier, but ran out of time before I managed to find a useful
 412 tool.  This time I was more successful, and after a few false leads I
 413 found a description of
 414 <a href="https://www.kali.org/tools/rtlsdr-scanner/">rtlsdr-scanner
 415 over at the Kali site</a>, and was able to track down
 416 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/rtlsdr-scanner.git">the
 417 Kali package git repository</a> to build a deb package for the
 418 scanner.  Sadly the package is missing from the Debian project itself,
 419 at least in Debian Bullseye.  Two runtime dependencies,
 420 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-visvis.git">python-visvis</a>
 421 and
 422 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-rtlsdr.git">python-rtlsdr</a>
 423 had to be built and installed separately.  Luckily '<tt>gbp
 424 buildpackage</tt>' handled them just fine and no further packages had
 425 to be manually built.  The end result worked out of the box after
 426 installation.</p>
 427
 428 <p>My initial scans for FM channels worked just fine, so I knew the
 429 scanner was functioning.  But when I tried to scan every frequency
 430 from 100 to 1000 MHz, the program stopped unexpectedly near the
 431 completion.  After some debugging I discovered USB software radio I
 432 used rejected frequencies above 948 MHz, triggering a unreported
 433 exception breaking the scan.  Changing the scan to end at 957 worked
 434 better.  I similarly found the lower limit to be around 15, and ended
 435 up with the following full scan:</p>
 436
 437 <p><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png" width="100%"></a></p>
 438
 439 <p>Saving the scan did not work, but exporting it as a CSV file worked
 440 just fine.  I ended up with around 477k CVS lines with dB level for
 441 the given frequency.</p>
 442
 443 <p>The save failure seem to be a missing UTF-8 encoding issue in the
 444 python code.  Will see if I can find time to send a patch
 445 <a href="https://github.com/CdeMills/RTLSDR-Scanner/">upstream</a>
 446 later to fix this exception:</p>
 447
 448 <pre>
 449 Traceback (most recent call last):
 450   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 451     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 452   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 453     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 454 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 455 Traceback (most recent call last):
 456   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 457     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 458   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 459     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 460 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 461 </pre>
 462
 463 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 464 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 465 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 466
 467       </div>
 468       <div class="tags">
 469
 470
 471         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 472
 473
 474       </div>
 475     </div>
 476     <div class="padding"></div>
 477
 478     <div class="entry">
 479       <div class="title">
 480         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenSnitch_available_in_Debian_Sid_and_Bookworm.html">OpenSnitch available in Debian Sid and Bookworm</a>
 481       </div>
 482       <div class="date">
 483         25th February 2023
 484       </div>
 485       <div class="body">
 486         <p>Thanks to the efforts of the OpenSnitch lead developer Gustavo
 487 Iñiguez Goya allowing me to sponsor the upload,
 488 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
 489 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> is now available in Debian
 490 Testing, soon to become the next stable release of Debian.</p>
 491
 492 <p>This is a package which set up a network firewall on one or more
 493 machines, which is controlled by a graphical user interface that will
 494 ask the user if a program should be allowed to connect to the local
 495 network or the Internet.  If some background daemon is trying to dial
 496 home, it can be blocked from doing so with a simple mouse click, or by
 497 default simply by not doing anything when the GUI question dialog pop
 498 up.  A list of all programs discovered using the network is provided
 499 in the GUI, giving the user an overview of how the machine(s) programs
 500 use the network.</p>
 501
 502 <p>OpenSnitch was uploaded for NEW processing about a month ago, and I
 503 had little hope of it getting accepted and shaping up in time for the
 504 package freeze, but the Debian ftpmasters proved to be amazingly quick
 505 at checking out the package and it was accepted into the archive about
 506 week after the first upload.  It is now team maintained under the Go
 507 language team umbrella.  A few fixes to the default setup is only in
 508 Sid, and should migrate to Testing/Bookworm in a week.</p>
 509
 510 <p>During testing I ran into an
 511 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/813">issue
 512 with Minecraft server broadcasts disappearing</a>, which was quickly
 513 resolved by the developer with a patch and a proposed configuration
 514 change.  I've been told this was caused by the Debian packages default
 515 use if /proc/ information to track down kernel status, instead of the
 516 newer eBPF module that can be used.  The reason is simply that
 517 upstream and I have failed to find a way to build the eBPF modules for
 518 OpenSnitch without a complete configured Linux kernel source tree,
 519 which as far as we can tell is unavailable as a build dependency in
 520 Debian.  We tried unsuccessfully so far to use the kernel-headers
 521 package.  It would be great if someone could provide some clues how to
 522 build eBPF modules on build daemons in Debian, possibly without the full
 523 kernel source.</p>
 524
 525 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 526 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 527 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 528
 529       </div>
 530       <div class="tags">
 531
 532
 533         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 534
 535
 536       </div>
 537     </div>
 538     <div class="padding"></div>
 539
 540     <div class="entry">
 541       <div class="title">
 542         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html">Is the desktop recommending your program for opening its files?</a>
 543       </div>
 544       <div class="date">
 545         29th January 2023
 546       </div>
 547       <div class="body">
 548         <p>Linux desktop systems
 549 <a href="https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html">have
 550 standardized</a> how programs present themselves to the desktop
 551 system.  If a package include a .desktop file in
 552 /usr/share/applications/, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and the other desktop
 553 environments will pick up the file and use its content to generate the
 554 menu of available programs in the system.  A lesser known fact is that
 555 a package can also explain to the desktop system how to recognize the
 556 files created by the program in question, and use it to open these
 557 files on request, for example via a GUI file browser.</p>
 558
 559 <p>A while back I ran into a package that did not tell the desktop
 560 system how to recognize its files and was not used to open its files
 561 in the file browser and fixed it.  In the process I wrote a simple
 562 debian/tests/ script to ensure the setup keep working.  It might be
 563 useful for other packages too, to ensure any future version of the
 564 package keep handling its own files.</p>
 565
 566 <p>For this to work the file format need a useful MIME type that can
 567 be used to identify the format.  If the file format do not yet have a
 568 MIME type, it should define one and preferably also
 569 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">register
 570 it with IANA</a> to ensure the MIME type string is reserved.</p>
 571
 572 <p>The script uses the <tt>xdg-mime</tt> program from xdg-utils to
 573 query the database of standardized package information and ensure it
 574 return sensible values.  It also need the location of an example file
 575 for xdg-mime to guess the format of.</p>
 576
 577 <pre>
 578 #!/bin/sh
 579 #
 580 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
 581 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice.
 582 #
 583 # Validate the MIME setup, making sure motor types have
 584 # application/vnd.openmotor+yaml associated with them and is connected
 585 # to the openmotor desktop file.
 586
 587 retval=0
 588
 589 mimetype="application/vnd.openmotor+yaml"
 590 testfile="test/data/real/o3100/motor.ric"
 591 mydesktopfile="openmotor.desktop"
 592
 593 filemime="$(xdg-mime query filetype "$testfile")"
 594
 595 if [ "$mimetype" != "$filemime" ] ; then
 596     retval=1
 597     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file MIME type is $filemine, not $mimetype"
 598 else
 599     echo "success: xdg-mime report correct mime type $mimetype for motor file"
 600 fi
 601
 602 desktop=$(xdg-mime query default "$mimetype")
 603
 604 if [ "$mydesktopfile" != "$desktop" ]; then
 605     retval=1
 606     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file should be handled by $desktop, not $mydesktopfile"
 607 else
 608     echo "success: xdg-mime agree motor file should be handled by $mydesktopfile"
 609 fi
 610
 611 exit $retval
 612 </pre>
 613
 614 <p>It is a simple way to ensure your users are not very surprised when
 615 they try to open one of your file formats in their file browser.</p>
 616
 617 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 618 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 619 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 620
 621       </div>
 622       <div class="tags">
 623
 624
 625         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 626
 627
 628       </div>
 629     </div>
 630     <div class="padding"></div>
 631
 632     <div class="entry">
 633       <div class="title">
 634         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opensnitch__the_application_level_interactive_firewall__heading_into_the_Debian_archive.html">Opensnitch, the application level interactive firewall, heading into the Debian archive</a>
 635       </div>
 636       <div class="date">
 637         22nd January 2023
 638       </div>
 639       <div class="body">
 640         <p>While reading a
 641 <a href="https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/">blog
 642 post claiming MacOS X recently started scanning local files and
 643 reporting information about them to Apple</a>, even on a machine where
 644 all such callback features had been disabled, I came across a
 645 description of the Little Snitch application for MacOS X.  It seemed
 646 like a very nice tool to have in the tool box, and I decided to see if
 647 something similar was available for Linux.</p>
 648
 649 <p>It did not take long to find
 650 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch">the OpenSnitch
 651 package</a>, which has been in development since 2017, and now is in
 652 version 1.5.0.  It has had a
 653 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/909567">request for Debian
 654 packaging</a> since 2018, but no-one completed the job so far.  Just
 655 for fun, I decided to see if I could help, and I was very happy to
 656 discover that
 657 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/304">upstream
 658 want a Debian package too</a>.</p>
 659
 660 <p>After struggling a bit with getting the program to run, figuring
 661 out building Go programs (and a little failed detour to look at eBPF
 662 builds too - help needed), I am very happy to report that I am
 663 sponsoring upstream to maintain the package in Debian, and it has
 664 since this morning been waiting in NEW for the ftpmasters to have a
 665 look.  Perhaps it can get into the archive in time for the Bookworm
 666 release?</p>
 667
 668 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 669 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 670 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 671
 672       </div>
 673       <div class="tags">
 674
 675
 676         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch</a>.
 677
 678
 679       </div>
 680     </div>
 681     <div class="padding"></div>
 682
 683     <div class="entry">
 684       <div class="title">
 685         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_MQTT_publisher_component.html">LinuxCNC MQTT publisher component</a>
 686       </div>
 687       <div class="date">
 688          8th January 2023
 689       </div>
 690       <div class="body">
 691         <p>I watched <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jmKUV3aNLjk">a 2015
 692 video from Andreas Schiffler</a> the other day, where he set up
 693 <a href="https://linuxcnc.org/">LinuxCNC</a> to send status
 694 information to the MQTT broker IBM Bluemix.  As I also use MQTT for
 695 graphing, it occured to me that a generic MQTT LinuxCNC component
 696 would be useful and I set out to implement it.  Today I got the first
 697 draft limping along and submitted as
 698 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2253">a patch to the
 699 LinuxCNC project</a>.</p>
 700
 701 <p>The simple part was setting up the MQTT publishing code in Python.
 702 I already have set up other parts submitting data to my Mosquito MQTT
 703 broker, so I could reuse that code.  Writing a LinuxCNC component in
 704 Python as new to me, but using existing examples in the code
 705 repository and the extensive documentation, this was fairly straight
 706 forward.  The hardest part was creating a automated test for the
 707 component to ensure it was working.  Testing it in a simulated
 708 LinuxCNC machine proved very useful, as I discovered features I needed
 709 that I had not thought of yet, and adjusted the code quite a bit to
 710 make it easier to test without a operational MQTT broker
 711 available.</p>
 712
 713 <p>The draft is ready and working, but I am unsure which LinuxCNC HAL
 714 pins I should collect and publish by default (in other words, the
 715 default set of information pieces published), and how to get the
 716 machine name from the LinuxCNC INI file.  The latter is a minor
 717 detail, but I expect it would be useful in a setup with several
 718 machines available.  I am hoping for feedback from the experienced
 719 LinuxCNC developers and users, to make the component even better
 720 before it can go into the mainland LinuxCNC code base.</p>
 721
 722 <p>Since I started on the MQTT component, I came across
 723 <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Bqa2grG0XtA">another video from Kent
 724 VanderVelden</a> where he combine LinuxCNC with a set of screen glasses
 725 controlled by a Raspberry Pi, and it occured to me that it would
 726 be useful for such use cases if LinuxCNC also provided a REST API for
 727 querying its status.  I hope to start on such component once the MQTT
 728 component is working well.</p>
 729
 730 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 731 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 732 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 733
 734       </div>
 735       <div class="tags">
 736
 737
 738         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 739
 740
 741       </div>
 742     </div>
 743     <div class="padding"></div>
 744
 745     <div class="entry">
 746       <div class="title">
 747         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ONVIF_IP_camera_management_tool_finally_in_Debian.html">ONVIF IP camera management tool finally in Debian</a>
 748       </div>
 749       <div class="date">
 750         24th December 2022
 751       </div>
 752       <div class="body">
 753         <p>Merry Christmas to you all.  Here is a small gift to all those with
 754 IP cameras following the <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">ONVIF
 755 specification</a>.  There is finally a nice command line and GUI tool
 756 in Debian to manage ONVIF IP cameras.  After working with upstream for
 757 a few months and sponsoring the upload, I am very happy to report that
 758 the <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/libonvif">libonvif package</a>
 759 entered Debian Sid last night.</p>
 760
 761 <p>The package provide a C library to communicate with such cameras, a
 762 command line tool to locate and update settings of (like password) the
 763 cameras and a GUI tool to configure and control the units as well as
 764 preview the video from the camera.  Libonvif is available on Both
 765 Linux and Windows and the GUI tool uses the Qt library.  The main
 766 competitors are non-free software, while libonvif is GNU GPL licensed.
 767 I am very glad Debian users in the future can control their cameras
 768 using a free software system provided by Debian.  But the ONVIF world
 769 is full of slightly broken firmware, where the cameras pretend to
 770 follow the ONVIF specification but fail to set some configuration
 771 values or refuse to provide video to more than one recipient at the
 772 time, and the onvif project is quite young and might take a while
 773 before it completely work with your camera.  Upstream seem eager to
 774 improve the library, so handling any broken camera might be just <a
 775 href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">a bug report away</a>.</p>
 776
 777 <p>The package just cleared NEW, and need a new source only upload
 778 before it can enter testing.  This will happen in the next few
 779 days.</p>
 780
 781 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 782 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 783 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 784
 785       </div>
 786       <div class="tags">
 787
 788
 789         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 790
 791
 792       </div>
 793     </div>
 794     <div class="padding"></div>
 795
 796     <div class="entry">
 797       <div class="title">
 798         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html">Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux</a>
 799       </div>
 800       <div class="date">
 801         19th October 2022
 802       </div>
 803       <div class="body">
 804         <p>Recently I have been looking at how to control and collect data
 805 from a handful IP cameras using Linux.  I both wanted to change their
 806 settings and to make their imagery available via a free software
 807 service under my control.  Here is a summary of the tools I found.</p>
 808
 809 <p>First I had to identify the cameras and their protocols.  As far as
 810 I could tell, they were using some SOAP looking protocol and their
 811 internal web server seem to only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer
 812 with some proprietary binary plugin, which in these days of course is
 813 a security disaster and also made it impossible for me to use the
 814 camera web interface.  Luckily I discovered that the SOAP looking
 815 protocol is actually following <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">the
 816 ONVIF specification</a>, which seem to be supported by a lot of IP
 817 cameras these days.</p>
 818
 819 <p>Once the protocol was identified, I was able to find what appear to
 820 be the most popular way to configure ONVIF cameras, the free software
 821 Windows tool named
 822 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/">ONVIF Device
 823 Manager</a>.  Lacking any other options at the time, I tried
 824 unsuccessfully to get it running using Wine, but was missing a dotnet
 825 40 library and I found no way around it to run it on Linux.</p>
 826
 827 <p>The next tool I found to configure the cameras were a non-free Linux Qt
 828 client <a href="https://www.lingodigit.com/onvif_nvcdemo.html">ONVIF
 829 Device Tool</a>.  I did not like its terms of use, so did not spend
 830 much time on it.</p>
 831
 832 <p>To collect the video and make it available in a web interface, I
 833 found the Zoneminder tool in Debian.  A recent version was able to
 834 automatically detect and configure ONVIF devices, so I could use it to
 835 set up motion detection in and collection of the camera output.  I had
 836 initial problems getting the ONVIF autodetection to work, as both
 837 Firefox and Chromium <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1001188">refused
 838 the inter-tab communication</a> being used by the Zoneminder web
 839 pages, but managed to get konqueror to work.  Apparently the "Enhanced
 840 Tracking Protection" in Firefox cause the problem.  I ended up
 841 upgrading to the Bookworm edition of Zoneminder in the process to try
 842 to fix the issue, and believe the problem might be solved now.</p>
 843
 844 <p>In the process I came across the nice Linux GUI tool
 845 <a href="https://gitlab.com/caspermeijn/onvifviewer/">ONVIF Viewer</a>
 846 allowing me to preview the camera output and validate the login
 847 passwords required.  Sadly its author has grown tired of maintaining
 848 the software, so it might not see any future updates.  Which is sad,
 849 as the viewer is sightly unstable and the picture tend to lock up.
 850 Note, this lockup might be due to limitations in the cameras and not
 851 the viewer implementation.  I suspect the camera is only able to
 852 provide pictures to one client at the time, and the Zoneminder feed
 853 might interfere with the GUI viewer.  I have
 854 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1000820">asked for the tool to be
 855 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 856
 857 <p>Finally, I found what appear to be very nice Linux free software
 858 replacement for the Windows tool, named
 859 <a href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">libonvif</a>.  It
 860 provide a C library to talk to ONVIF devices as well as a command line
 861 and GUI tool using the library.  Using the GUI tool I was able to change
 862 the admin passwords and update other settings of the cameras.  I have
 863 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1021980">asked for the package to be
 864 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 865
 866 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 867 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 868 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 869
 870 <p><strong>Update 2022-10-20</strong>: Since my initial publication of
 871 this text, I got several suggestions for more free software Linux
 872 tools.  There is <a href="https://github.com/quatanium/python-onvif">a
 873 ONVIF python library</a> (already
 874 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/824240">requested into Debian</a>) and
 875 <a href="https://github.com/FalkTannhaeuser/python-onvif-zeep">a python 3
 876 fork</a> using a different SOAP dependency.  There is also
 877 <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/onvif/">support for
 878 ONVIF in Home Assistant</a>, and there is an alternative to Zoneminder
 879 called <a href="https://www.shinobi.video/">Shinobi</a>.  The latter
 880 two are not included in Debian either.  I have not tested any of these
 881 so far.</p>
 882
 883       </div>
 884       <div class="tags">
 885
 886
 887         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 888
 889
 890       </div>
 891     </div>
 892     <div class="padding"></div>
 893
 894     <div class="entry">
 895       <div class="title">
 896         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_translate_the_Bullseye_edition_of_the_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Time to translate the Bullseye edition of the Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
 897       </div>
 898       <div class="date">
 899         12th September 2022
 900       </div>
 901       <div class="body">
 902         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
 903
 904 <p>(The picture is of the previous edition.)</p>
 905
 906 <p>Almost two years after the previous Norwegian Bokmål translation of
 907 the "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 908 Handbook</a>" was published, a new edition is finally being prepared.  The
 909 english text is updated, and it is time to start working on the
 910 translations.  Around 37 percent of the strings have been updated, one
 911 way or another, and the translations starting from a complete Debian Buster
 912 edition now need to bring their translation up from 63% to 100%.  The
 913 complete book is licensed using a Creative Commons license, and has
 914 been published in several languages over the years.  The translations
 915 are done by volunteers to bring Linux in their native tongue.  The
 916 last time I checked, it complete text was available in English,
 917 Norwegian Bokmål, German, Indonesian, Brazil Portuguese and Spanish.
 918 In addition, work has been started for Arabic (Morocco), Catalan,
 919 Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish,
 920 Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish,
 921 Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.</p>
 922
 923 <p>The translation is conducted on
 924 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 925 hosted weblate project page</a>.  Prospective translators are
 926 recommeded to subscribe to
 927 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 928 translators mailing list</a> and should also check out
 929 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 930 contributors</a>.</p>
 931
 932 <p>I am one of the Norwegian Bokmål translators of this book, and we
 933 have just started.  Your contribution is most welcome.</p>
 934
 935 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 936 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 937 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 938
 939       </div>
 940       <div class="tags">
 941
 942
 943         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 944
 945
 946       </div>
 947     </div>
 948     <div class="padding"></div>
 949
 950     <div class="entry">
 951       <div class="title">
 952         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_LinuxCNC_servo_PID_tuning_.html">Automatic LinuxCNC servo PID tuning?</a>
 953       </div>
 954       <div class="date">
 955         16th July 2022
 956       </div>
 957       <div class="body">
 958         <p>While working on a CNC with servo motors controlled by the
 959 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>
 960 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller">PID
 961 controller</a>, I recently had to learn how to tune the collection of values
 962 that control such mathematical machinery that a PID controller is.  It
 963 proved to be a lot harder than I hoped, and I still have not succeeded
 964 in getting the Z PID controller to successfully defy gravity, nor X
 965 and Y to move accurately and reliably.  But while climbing up this
 966 rather steep learning curve, I discovered that some motor control
 967 systems are able to tune their PID controllers.  I got the impression
 968 from the documentation that LinuxCNC were not.  This proved to be not
 969 true.</p>
 970
 971 <p>The LinuxCNC
 972 <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/pid.9.html">pid
 973 component</a> is the recommended PID controller to use.  It uses eight
 974 constants <tt>Pgain</tt>, <tt>Igain</tt>, <tt>Dgain</tt>,
 975 <tt>bias</tt>, <tt>FF0</tt>, <tt>FF1</tt>, <tt>FF2</tt> and
 976 <tt>FF3</tt> to calculate the output value based on current and wanted
 977 state, and all of these need to have a sensible value for the
 978 controller to behave properly.  Note, there are even more values
 979 involved, theser are just the most important ones.  In my case I need
 980 the X, Y and Z axes to follow the requested path with little error.
 981 This has proved quite a challenge for someone who have never tuned a
 982 PID controller before, but there is at least some help to be found.
 983
 984 <p>I discovered that included in LinuxCNC was this old PID component
 985 at_pid claiming to have auto tuning capabilities.  Sadly it had been
 986 neglected since 2011, and could not be used as a plug in replacement
 987 for the default pid component.  One would have to rewriting the
 988 LinuxCNC HAL setup to test at_pid.  This was rather sad, when I wanted
 989 to quickly test auto tuning to see if it did a better job than me at
 990 figuring out good P, I and D values to use.</p>
 991
 992 <p>I decided to have a look if the situation could be improved.  This
 993 involved trying to understand the code and history of the pid and
 994 at_pid components.  Apparently they had a common ancestor, as code
 995 structure, comments and variable names were quite close to each other.
 996 Sadly this was not reflected in the git history, making it hard to
 997 figure out what really happened.  My guess is that the author of
 998 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/at_pid.c">at_pid.c</a>
 999 took a version of
1000 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/pid.c">pid.c</a>,
1001 rewrote it to follow the structure he wished pid.c to have, then added
1002 support for auto tuning and finally got it included into the LinuxCNC
1003 repository.  The restructuring and lack of early history made it
1004 harder to figure out which part of the code were relevant to the auto
1005 tuning, and which part of the code needed to be updated to work the
1006 same way as the current pid.c implementation.  I started by trying to
1007 isolate relevant changes in pid.c, and applying them to at_pid.c.  My
1008 aim was to make sure the at_pid component could replace the pid
1009 component with a simple change in the HAL setup loadrt line, without
1010 having to "rewire" the rest of the HAL configuration.  After a few
1011 hours following this approach, I had learned quite a lot about the
1012 code structure of both components, while concluding I was heading down
1013 the wrong rabbit hole, and should get back to the surface and find a
1014 different path.</p>
1015
1016 <p>For the second attempt, I decided to throw away all the PID control
1017 related part of the original at_pid.c, and instead isolate and lift
1018 the auto tuning part of the code and inject it into a copy of pid.c.
1019 This ensured compatibility with the current pid component, while
1020 adding auto tuning as a run time option.  To make it easier to identify
1021 the relevant parts in the future, I wrapped all the auto tuning code
1022 with '#ifdef AUTO_TUNER'.  The end result behave just like the current
1023 pid component by default, as that part of the code is identical.  The
1024 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/1820">end result
1025 entered the LinuxCNC master branch</a> a few days ago.</p>
1026
1027 <p>To enable auto tuning, one need to set a few HAL pins in the PID
1028 component.  The most important ones are <tt>tune-effort</tt>,
1029 <tt>tune-mode</tt> and <tt>tune-start</tt>.  But lets take a step
1030 back, and see what the auto tuning code will do.  I do not know the
1031 mathematical foundation of the at_pid algorithm, but from observation
1032 I can tell that the algorithm will, when enabled, produce a square
1033 wave pattern centered around the <tt>bias</tt> value on the output pin
1034 of the PID controller.  This can be seen using the HAL Scope provided
1035 by LinuxCNC.  In my case, this is translated into voltage (+-10V) sent
1036 to the motor controller, which in turn is translated into motor speed.
1037 So at_pid will ask the motor to move the axis back and forth.  The
1038 number of cycles in the pattern is controlled by the
1039 <tt>tune-cycles</tt> pin, and the extremes of the wave pattern is
1040 controlled by the <tt>tune-effort</tt> pin.  Of course, trying to
1041 change the direction of a physical object instantly (as in going
1042 directly from a positive voltage to the equivalent negative voltage)
1043 do not change velocity instantly, and it take some time for the object
1044 to slow down and move in the opposite direction.  This result in a
1045 more smooth movement wave form, as the axis in question were vibrating
1046 back and forth.  When the axis reached the target speed in the
1047 opposing direction, the auto tuner change direction again.  After
1048 several of these changes, the average time delay between the 'peaks'
1049 and 'valleys' of this movement graph is then used to calculate
1050 proposed values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain, and insert them into the
1051 HAL model to use by the pid controller.  The auto tuned settings are
1052 not great, but htye work a lot better than the values I had been able
1053 to cook up on my own, at least for the horizontal X and Y axis.  But I
1054 had to use very small <tt>tune-effort<tt> values, as my motor
1055 controllers error out if the voltage change too quickly.  I've been
1056 less lucky with the Z axis, which is moving a heavy object up and
1057 down, and seem to confuse the algorithm.  The Z axis movement became a
1058 lot better when I introduced a <tt>bias</tt> value to counter the
1059 gravitational drag, but I will have to work a lot more on the Z axis
1060 PID values.</p>
1061
1062 <p>Armed with this knowledge, it is time to look at how to do the
1063 tuning.  Lets say the HAL configuration in question load the PID
1064 component for X, Y and Z like this:</p>
1065
1066 <blockquote><pre>
1067 loadrt pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
1068 </pre></blockquote>
1069
1070 <p>Armed with the new and improved at_pid component, the new line will
1071 look like this:</p>
1072
1073 <blockquote><pre>
1074 loadrt at_pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
1075 </pre></blockquote>
1076
1077 <p>The rest of the HAL setup can stay the same.  This work because the
1078 components are referenced by name.  If the component had used count=3
1079 instead, all use of pid.# had to be changed to at_pid.#.</p>
1080
1081 <p>To start tuning the X axis, move the axis to the middle of its
1082 range, to make sure it do not hit anything when it start moving back
1083 and forth.  Next, set the <tt>tune-effort</tt> to a low number in the
1084 output range.  I used 0.1 as my initial value.  Next, assign 1 to the
1085 <tt>tune-mode</tt> value. Note, this will disable the pid controlling
1086 part and feed 0 to the output pin, which in my case initially caused a
1087 lot of drift.  In my case it proved to be a good idea with X and Y to
1088 tune the motor driver to make sure 0 voltage stopped the motor
1089 rotation.  On the other hand, for the Z axis this proved to be a bad
1090 idea, so it will depend on your setup.  It might help to set the
1091 <tt>bias</tt> value to a output value that reduce or eliminate the
1092 axis drift.  Finally, after setting <tt>tune-mode</tt>, set
1093 <tt>tune-start</tt> to 1 to activate the auto tuning.  If all go well,
1094 your axis will vibrate for a few seconds and when it is done, new
1095 values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain will be active.  To test them,
1096 change <tt>tune-mode</tt> back to 0.  Note that this might cause the
1097 machine to suddenly jerk as it bring the axis back to its commanded
1098 position, which it might have drifted away from during tuning.  To
1099 summarize with some halcmd lines:</p>
1100
1101 <blockquote><pre>
1102 setp pid.x.tune-effort 0.1
1103 setp pid.x.tune-mode 1
1104 setp pid.x.tune-start 1
1105 # wait for the tuning to complete
1106 setp pid.x.tune-mode 0
1107 </pre></blockquote>
1108
1109 <p>After doing this task quite a few times while trying to figure out
1110 how to properly tune the PID controllers on the machine in, I decided
1111 to figure out if this process could be automated, and wrote a script
1112 to do the entire tuning process from power on.  The end result will
1113 ensure the machine is powered on and ready to run, home all axis if it
1114 is not already done, check that the extra tuning pins are available,
1115 move the axis to its mid point, run the auto tuning and re-enable the
1116 pid controller when it is done.  It can be run several times.  Check
1117 out the
1118 <a href="https://github.com/SebKuzminsky/MazakVQC1540/blob/bon-dev/scripts/run-auto-pid-tuner">run-auto-pid-tuner</a>
1119 script on github if you want to learn how it is done.</p>
1120
1121 <p>My hope is that this little adventure can inspire someone who know
1122 more about motor PID controller tuning can implement even better
1123 algorithms for automatic PID tuning in LinuxCNC, making life easier
1124 for both me and all the others that want to use LinuxCNC but lack the
1125 in depth knowledge needed to tune PID controllers well.</p>
1126
1127 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1128 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1129 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1130
1131       </div>
1132       <div class="tags">
1133
1134
1135         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1136
1137
1138       </div>
1139     </div>
1140     <div class="padding"></div>
1141
1142     <div class="entry">
1143       <div class="title">
1144         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_translators_life_just_got_a_bit_easier.html">LinuxCNC translators life just got a bit easier</a>
1145       </div>
1146       <div class="date">
1147          3rd June 2022
1148       </div>
1149       <div class="body">
1150         <p>Back in oktober last year, when I started looking at the
1151 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a> system, I
1152 proposed to change the documentation build system make life easier for
1153 translators.  The original system consisted of independently written
1154 documentation files for each language, with no automated way to track
1155 changes done in other translations and no help for the translators to
1156 know how much was left to translated.  By using
1157 <a href="https://po4a.org/">the po4a system</a> to generate POT and PO
1158 files from the English documentation, this can be improved.  A small
1159 team of LinuxCNC contributors got together and today our labour
1160 finally payed off.  Since a few hours ago, it is now possible to
1161 translate <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/linuxcnc/">the
1162 LinuxCNC documentation on Weblate</a>, alongside the program itself.</p>
1163
1164 <p>The effort to migrate the documentation to use po4a has been both
1165 slow and frustrating.  I am very happy we finally made it.</p>
1166
1167 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1168 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1169 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1170
1171       </div>
1172       <div class="tags">
1173
1174
1175         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1176
1177
1178       </div>
1179     </div>
1180     <div class="padding"></div>
1181
1182     <div class="entry">
1183       <div class="title">
1184         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/geteltorito_make_CD_firmware_upgrades_a_breeze.html">geteltorito make CD firmware upgrades a breeze</a>
1185       </div>
1186       <div class="date">
1187         20th April 2022
1188       </div>
1189       <div class="body">
1190         <p>Recently I wanted to upgrade the firmware of my thinkpad, and
1191 located the firmware download page from Lenovo (which annoyingly do
1192 not allow access via Tor, forcing me to hand them more personal
1193 information that I would like).  The
1194 <a href="https://support.lenovo.com/no/en/search?query=thinkpad firmware bios upgrade iso&SearchType=Customer search&searchLocation=Masthead">download
1195 from Lenovo</a> is a bootable ISO image, which is a bit of a problem
1196 when all I got available is a USB memory stick.  I tried booting the
1197 ISO as a USB stick, but this did not work.  But genisoimage came to
1198 the rescue.</p>
1199
1200 <P>The geteltorito program in
1201 <a href="http://tracker.debian.org/cdrkit">the genisoimage binary
1202 package</a> is able to convert the bootable ISO image to a bootable
1203 USB stick using a simple command line recipe, which I then can write
1204 to the most recently inserted USB stick:</p>
1205
1206 <blockquote><pre>
1207 geteltorito -o usbstick.img lenovo-firmware.iso
1208 sudo dd bs=10M if=usbstick.img of=$(ls -tr /dev/sd?|tail -1)
1209 </pre></blockquote>
1210
1211 <p>This USB stick booted the firmware upgrader just fine, and in a few
1212 minutes my machine had the latest and greatest BIOS firmware in place.</p>
1213
1214       </div>
1215       <div class="tags">
1216
1217
1218         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1219
1220
1221       </div>
1222     </div>
1223     <div class="padding"></div>
1224
1225     <div class="entry">
1226       <div class="title">
1227         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Run_your_industrial_metal_working_machine_using_Debian_.html">Run your industrial metal working machine using Debian?</a>
1228       </div>
1229       <div class="date">
1230          2nd March 2022
1231       </div>
1232       <div class="body">
1233         <p>After many months of hard work by the good people involved in
1234 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>, the
1235 system was accepted Sunday
1236 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linuxcnc">into Debian</a>.
1237 Once it was available from Debian, I was surprised to discover from
1238 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=linuxcnc">its
1239 popularity-contest numbers</a> that people have been reporting its use
1240 since 2012.  <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/">Its project site</a> might
1241 be a good place to check out, but sadly is not working when visiting
1242 via Tor.</p>
1243
1244 <p>But what is LinuxCNC, you are probably wondering?  Perhaps a
1245 Wikipedia quote is in place?</p>
1246
1247 <blockquote>
1248 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
1249 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
1250 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
1251 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
1252 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
1253 interactive development)."
1254 </blockquote>
1255
1256 <p>It can even control 3D printers.  And even though the Wikipedia
1257 page indicate that it can only work with hard real time kernel
1258 features, it can also work with the user space soft real time features
1259 provided by the Debian kernel.
1260 <a href="https://github.com/linuxcnc/linuxcnc">The source code</a> is
1261 available from Github.  The last few months I've been involved in the
1262 translation setup for the program and documentation.  Translators are
1263 most welcome to
1264 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/linuxcnc/">join the
1265 effort</a> using Weblate.</p>
1266
1267 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1268 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1269 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1270
1271       </div>
1272       <div class="tags">
1273
1274
1275         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1276
1277
1278       </div>
1279     </div>
1280     <div class="padding"></div>
1281
1282     <div class="entry">
1283       <div class="title">
1284         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_still_an_excellent_choice_for_Lego_builders.html">Debian still an excellent choice for Lego builders</a>
1285       </div>
1286       <div class="date">
1287         24th October 2021
1288       </div>
1289       <div class="body">
1290         <p>The Debian Lego team saw a lot of activity the last few weeks.  All
1291 the packages under the team umbrella has been updated to fix
1292 packaging, lintian issues and BTS reports.  In addition, a new and
1293 inspiring team member appeared on both the
1294 <a href="https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-lego-team">debian-lego-team
1295 Team mailing list</a> and
1296 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC channel
1297 #debian-lego</a>.  If you are interested in Lego CAD design and LEGO
1298 Mindstorms programming, check out the
1299 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">team wiki page</a> to
1300 see what Debian can offer the Lego enthusiast.</p>
1301
1302 <p>Patches has been sent upstream, causing new upstream releases, one
1303 even the first one in more than ten years, and old upstreams was
1304 released with new ones.  There are still a lot of work left, and the
1305 team welcome more members to help us make sure Debian is the Linux
1306 distribution of choice for Lego builders.  If you want to contribute,
1307 join us in the IRC channel and become part of
1308 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian-lego-team/">the team on
1309 Salsa</a>.</p>
1310
1311 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1312 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1313 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1314
1315       </div>
1316       <div class="tags">
1317
1318
1319         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1320
1321
1322       </div>
1323     </div>
1324     <div class="padding"></div>
1325
1326     <div class="entry">
1327       <div class="title">
1328         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Six_complete_translations_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_for_Buster.html">Six complete translations of The Debian Administrator's Handbook for Buster</a>
1329       </div>
1330       <div class="date">
1331          5th July 2021
1332       </div>
1333       <div class="body">
1334         <p>I am happy observe that the <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The
1335 Debian Administrator's Handbook</a> is available in six languages now.
1336 I am not sure which one of these are completely proof read, but the
1337 complete book is available in these languages:
1338
1339 <ul>
1340
1341 <li>English</li>
1342 <li>Norwegian Bokmål</li>
1343 <li>German</li>
1344 <li>Indonesian</li>
1345 <li>Brazil Portuguese</li>
1346 <li>Spanish</li>
1347
1348 </ul>
1349
1350 <p>This is the list of languages more than 70% complete, in other
1351 words with not too much left to do:</p>
1352
1353 <ul>
1354
1355 <li>Chinese (Simplified) - 90%</li>
1356 <li>French - 79%</li>
1357 <li>Italian - 79%</li>
1358 <li>Japanese - 77%</li>
1359 <li>Arabic (Morocco) - 75%</li>
1360 <li>Persian - 71%</li>
1361
1362 </ul>
1363
1364 <p>I wonder how long it will take to bring these to 100%.</p>
1365
1366 <p>Then there is the list of languages about halfway done:</p>
1367
1368 <ul>
1369
1370 <li>Russian - 63%</li>
1371 <li>Swedish - 53%</li>
1372 <li>Chinese (Traditional) - 46%</li>
1373 <li>Catalan - 45%</li>
1374
1375 </ul>
1376
1377 <p>Several are on to a good start:</p>
1378
1379 <ul>
1380
1381 <li>Dutch - 26%</li>
1382 <li>Vietnamese - 25%</li>
1383 <li>Polish - 23%</li>
1384 <li>Czech - 22%</li>
1385 <li>Turkish - 18%</li>
1386
1387 </ul>
1388
1389 <p>Finally, there are the ones just getting started:</p>
1390
1391 <ul>
1392
1393 <li>Korean - 4%</li>
1394 <li>Croatian - 2%</li>
1395 <li>Greek - 2%</li>
1396 <li>Danish - 1%</li>
1397 <li>Romanian - 1%</li>
1398
1399 </ul>
1400
1401 <p>If you want to help provide a Debian instruction book in your own
1402 language, visit
1403 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/#languages">Weblate</a>
1404 to contribute to the translations.</p>
1405
1406 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1407 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1408 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1409
1410       </div>
1411       <div class="tags">
1412
1413
1414         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1415
1416
1417       </div>
1418     </div>
1419     <div class="padding"></div>
1420
1421     <div class="entry">
1422       <div class="title">
1423         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Latest_Jami_back_in_Debian_Testing__and_scriptable_using_dbus.html">Latest Jami back in Debian Testing, and scriptable using dbus</a>
1424       </div>
1425       <div class="date">
1426         12th January 2021
1427       </div>
1428       <div class="body">
1429         <p>After a lot of hard work by its maintainer Alexandre Viau and
1430 others, the decentralized communication platform
1431 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>
1432 (earlier known as Ring), managed to get
1433 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">its latest version</a>
1434 into Debian Testing.  Several of its dependencies has caused build and
1435 propagation problems, which all seem to be solved now.</p>
1436
1437 <p>In addition to the fact that Jami is decentralized, similar to how
1438 bittorrent is decentralized, I first of all like how it is not
1439 connected to external IDs like phone numbers.  This allow me to set up
1440 computers to send me notifications using Jami without having to find
1441 get a phone number for each computer.  Automatic notification via Jami
1442 is also made trivial thanks to the provided client side API (as a DBus
1443 service).  Here is my bourne shell script demonstrating how to let any
1444 system send a message to any Jami address.  It will create a new
1445 identity before sending the message, if no Jami identity exist
1446 already:</p>
1447
1448 <p><pre>
1449 #!/bin/sh
1450 #
1451 # Usage: $0 <jami-address> <message>
1452 #
1453 # Send <message> to <jami-address>, create local jami account if
1454 # missing.
1455 #
1456 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice
1457 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
1458
1459
1460 if [ -z "$HOME" ] ; then
1461     echo "error: missing \$HOME, required for dbus to work"
1462     exit 1
1463 fi
1464
1465 # First, get dbus running if not already running
1466 DBUSLAUNCH=/usr/bin/dbus-launch
1467 PIDFILE=/run/asterisk/dbus-session.pid
1468 if [ -e $PIDFILE ] ; then
1469     . $PIDFILE
1470     if ! kill -0 $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID 2>/dev/null ; then
1471         unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1472     fi
1473 fi
1474 if [ -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ] && [ -x "$DBUSLAUNCH" ]; then
1475     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=$HOME/.dbus"
1476     dbus-daemon --session --address="$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" --nofork --nopidfile --syslog-only < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 3>&1 &
1477     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$!
1478     (
1479         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID
1480         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=\""$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"\"
1481         echo export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1482     ) > $PIDFILE
1483     . $PIDFILE
1484 fi &
1485
1486 dringop() {
1487     part="$1"; shift
1488     op="$1"; shift
1489     dbus-send --session \
1490         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1491 }
1492
1493 dringopreply() {
1494     part="$1"; shift
1495     op="$1"; shift
1496     dbus-send --session --print-reply \
1497         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1498 }
1499
1500 firstaccount() {
1501     dringopreply ConfigurationManager getAccountList | \
1502       grep string | awk -F'"' '{print $2}' | head -n 1
1503 }
1504
1505 account=$(firstaccount)
1506
1507 if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1508     echo "Missing local account, trying to create it"
1509     dringop ConfigurationManager addAccount \
1510       dict:string:string:"Account.type","RING","Account.videoEnabled","false"
1511     account=$(firstaccount)
1512     if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1513         echo "unable to create local account"
1514         exit 1
1515     fi
1516 fi
1517
1518 # Not using dringopreply to ensure $2 can contain spaces
1519 dbus-send --print-reply --session \
1520   --dest=cx.ring.Ring \
1521   /cx/ring/Ring/ConfigurationManager \
1522   cx.ring.Ring.ConfigurationManager.sendTextMessage \
1523   string:"$account" string:"$1" \
1524   dict:string:string:"text/plain","$2"
1525 </pre></p>
1526
1527 <p>If you want to check it out yourself, visit the
1528 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system project page</a> to learn
1529 more, and install the latest Jami client from Debian Unstable or
1530 Testing.</p>
1531
1532 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1533 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1534 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1535
1536       </div>
1537       <div class="tags">
1538
1539
1540         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1541
1542
1543       </div>
1544     </div>
1545     <div class="padding"></div>
1546
1547     <div class="entry">
1548       <div class="title">
1549         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_based_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Buster based Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1550       </div>
1551       <div class="date">
1552         20th October 2020
1553       </div>
1554       <div class="body">
1555         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
1556
1557 <p>I am happy to report that we finally made it!  Norwegian Bokmål
1558 became the first translation published on paper of the new Buster
1559 based edition of "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
1560 Administrator's Handbook</a>".  The print proof reading copy arrived
1561 some days ago, and it looked good, so now the book is approved for
1562 general distribution.  This updated paperback edition <a
1563 href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available from
1564 lulu.com</a>.  The book is also available for download in electronic
1565 form as PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, and can also be
1566 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online</a>.</p>
1567
1568 <p>I am very happy to wrap up this Creative Common licensed project,
1569 which concludes several months of work by several volunteers. The
1570 number of Linux related books published in Norwegian are few, and I
1571 really hope this one will gain many readers, as it is packed with deep
1572 knowledge on Linux and the Debian ecosystem.  The book will be
1573 available for various Internet book stores like Amazon and Barnes &
1574 Noble soon, but I recommend buying
1575 "<a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/roland-mas-and-rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-9j7qwq.html">Håndbok
1576 for Debian-administratoren</a>" directly from the source at Lulu.
1577
1578 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1579 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1580 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1581
1582       </div>
1583       <div class="tags">
1584
1585
1586         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1587
1588
1589       </div>
1590     </div>
1591     <div class="padding"></div>
1592
1593     <div class="entry">
1594       <div class="title">
1595         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_update_of_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_almost_done.html">Buster update of Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook almost done</a>
1596       </div>
1597       <div class="date">
1598         11th September 2020
1599       </div>
1600       <div class="body">
1601         <p>Thanks to the good work of several volunteers, the updated edition
1602 of the Norwegian translation for
1603 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1604 Handbook</a>" is now almost completed.  After many months of proof
1605 reading, I consider the proof reading complete enough for us to move
1606 to the next step, and have asked for the print version to be prepared
1607 and sent of to the print on demand service lulu.com.  While it is
1608 still not to late if you find any incorrect translations on
1609 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1610 hosted Weblate service</a>, but it will be soon. :) You can check out
1611 <a href=" https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">the Buster
1612 edition on the web</a> until the print edition is ready.</p>
1613
1614 <p>The book will be for sale on lulu.com and various web book stores,
1615 with links available from the web site for the book linked to above.
1616 I hope a lot of readers find it useful.</p>
1617
1618 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1619 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1620 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1621
1622       </div>
1623       <div class="tags">
1624
1625
1626         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1627
1628
1629       </div>
1630     </div>
1631     <div class="padding"></div>
1632
1633     <div class="entry">
1634       <div class="title">
1635         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Working_on_updated_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Working on updated Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1636       </div>
1637       <div class="date">
1638          4th July 2020
1639       </div>
1640       <div class="body">
1641         <p>Three years ago, the first Norwegian Bokmål edition of
1642 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1643 Handbook</a>" was published.  This was based on Debian Jessie.  Now a
1644 new and updated version based on Buster is getting ready.  Work on the
1645 updated Norwegian Bokmål edition has been going on for a few months
1646 now, and yesterday, we reached the first mile stone, with 100% of the
1647 texts being translated.  A lot of proof reading remains, of course,
1648 but a major step towards a new edition has been taken.</p>
1649
1650 <p>The book is translated by volunteers, and we would love to get some
1651 help with the proof reading.  The translation uses
1652 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1653 hosted Weblate service</a>, and we welcome everyone to have a look and
1654 submit improvements and suggestions.  There is also a proof readers
1655 PDF available on request, get in touch if you want to help out that
1656 way.</p>
1657
1658 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1659 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1660 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1661
1662       </div>
1663       <div class="tags">
1664
1665
1666         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1667
1668
1669       </div>
1670     </div>
1671     <div class="padding"></div>
1672
1673     <div class="entry">
1674       <div class="title">
1675         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Secure_Socket_API___a_simple_and_powerful_approach_for_TLS_support_in_software.html">Secure Socket API - a simple and powerful approach for TLS support in software</a>
1676       </div>
1677       <div class="date">
1678          6th June 2020
1679       </div>
1680       <div class="body">
1681         <p>As a member of the <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix
1682 User Group</a>, I have the pleasure of receiving the
1683 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a> magazine
1684 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/">;login:</a>
1685 several times a year.  I rarely have time to read all the articles,
1686 but try to at least skim through them all as there is a lot of nice
1687 knowledge passed on there.  I even carry the latest issue with me most
1688 of the time to try to get through all the articles when I have a few
1689 spare minutes.</p>
1690
1691 <p>The other day I came across a nice article titled
1692 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/winter2018/oneill">The
1693 Secure Socket API: TLS as an Operating System Service</a>" with a
1694 marvellous idea I hope can make it all the way into the POSIX standard.
1695 The idea is as simple as it is powerful.  By introducing a new
1696 socket() option IPPROTO_TLS to use TLS, and a system wide service to
1697 handle setting up TLS connections, one both make it trivial to add TLS
1698 support to any program currently using the POSIX socket API, and gain
1699 system wide control over certificates, TLS versions and encryption
1700 systems used.  Instead of doing this:</p>
1701
1702 <p><blockquote><pre>
1703 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
1704 </pre></blockquote></p>
1705
1706 <p>the program code would be doing this:<p>
1707
1708 <p><blockquote><pre>
1709 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TLS);
1710 </pre></blockquote></p>
1711
1712 <p>According to the ;login: article, converting a C program to use TLS
1713 would normally modify only 5-10 lines in the code, which is amazing
1714 when compared to using for example the OpenSSL API.</p>
1715
1716 <p>The project has set up the
1717 <a href="https://securesocketapi.org/">https://securesocketapi.org/</a>
1718 web site to spread the idea, and the code for a kernel module and the
1719 associated system daemon is available from two github repositories:
1720 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa">ssa</a> and
1721 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa-daemon">ssa-daemon</a>.
1722 Unfortunately there is no explicit license information with the code,
1723 so its copyright status is unclear.  A
1724 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa/issues/2">request to solve
1725 this</a> about it has been unsolved since 2018-08-17.</p>
1726
1727 <p>I love the idea of extending socket() to gain TLS support, and
1728 understand why it is an advantage to implement this as a kernel module
1729 and system wide service daemon, but can not help to think that it
1730 would be a lot easier to get projects to move to this way of setting
1731 up TLS if it was done with a user space approach where programs
1732 wanting to use this API approach could just link with a wrapper
1733 library.</p>
1734
1735 <p>I recommend you check out this simple and powerful approach to more
1736 secure network connections. :)</p>
1737
1738 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1739 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1740 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1741
1742       </div>
1743       <div class="tags">
1744
1745
1746         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
1747
1748
1749       </div>
1750     </div>
1751     <div class="padding"></div>
1752
1753     <div class="entry">
1754       <div class="title">
1755         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_as_a_Zoom_client__a_trick_for_password_protected_rooms___.html">Jami as a Zoom client, a trick for password protected rooms...</a>
1756       </div>
1757       <div class="date">
1758          8th May 2020
1759       </div>
1760       <div class="body">
1761         <p>Half a year ago,
1762 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">I
1763 wrote</a> about <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami communication
1764 client</a>, capable of peer-to-peer encrypted communication.  It
1765 handle both messages, audio and video.  It uses distributed hash
1766 tables instead of central infrastructure to connect its users to each
1767 other, which in my book is a plus.  I mentioned briefly that it could
1768 also work as a SIP client, which came in handy when the higher
1769 educational sector in Norway started to promote Zoom as its video
1770 conferencing solution.  I am reluctant to use the official Zoom client
1771 software, due to their <a href="https://zoom.us/terms">copyright
1772 license clauses</a> prohibiting users to reverse engineer (for example
1773 to check the security) and benchmark it, and thus prefer to connect to
1774 Zoom meetings with free software clients.</p>
1775
1776 <p>Jami worked OK as a SIP client to Zoom as long as there was no
1777 password set on the room.  The Jami daemon leak memory like crazy
1778 (approximately 1 GiB a minute) when I am connected to the video
1779 conference, so I had to restart the client every 7-10 minutes, which
1780 is not great.  I tried to get other SIP Linux clients to work
1781 without success, so I decided I would have to live with this wart
1782 until someone managed to fix the leak in the dring code base.  But
1783 another problem showed up once the rooms were password protected.  I
1784 could not get my dial tone signaling through from Jami to Zoom, and
1785 dial tone signaling is used to enter the password when connecting to
1786 Zoom.  I tried a lot of different permutations with my Jami and
1787 Asterisk setup to try to figure out why the signaling did not get
1788 through, only to finally discover that the fundamental problem seem to
1789 be that Zoom is simply not able to receive dial tone signaling when
1790 connecting via SIP.  There seem to be nothing wrong with the Jami and
1791 Asterisk end, it is simply broken in the Zoom end.  I got help from a
1792 very skilled VoIP engineer figuring out this last part.  And being a
1793 very skilled engineer, he was also able to locate a solution for me.
1794 Or to be exact, a workaround that solve my initial problem of
1795 connecting to password protected Zoom rooms using Jami.</p>
1796
1797 <p>So, how do you do this, I am sure you are wondering by now.  The
1798 trick is already
1799 <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202405539-H-323-SIP-Room-Connector-Dial-Strings#sip">documented
1800 from Zoom</a>, and it is to modify the SIP address to include the room
1801 password.  What is most surprising about this is that the
1802 automatically generated email from Zoom with instructions on how to
1803 connect via SIP do not mention this.  The SIP address to use normally
1804 consist of the room ID (a number), an @ character and the IP address
1805 of the Zoom SIP gateway.  But Zoom understand a lot more than just the
1806 room ID in front of the at sign.  The format is "<tt>[Meeting
1807 ID].[Password].[Layout].[Host Key]</tt>", and you can here see how you
1808 can both enter password, control the layout (full screen, active
1809 presence and gallery) and specify the host key to start the meeting.
1810 The full SIP address entered into Jami to provide the password will
1811 then look like this (all using made up numbers):</p>
1812
1813 <p><blockquote>
1814 <tt>sip:657837644.522827@192.168.169.170</tt>
1815 </blockquote></p>
1816
1817 <p>Now if only jami would reduce its memory usage, I could even
1818 recommend this setup to others. :)</p>
1819
1820 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1821 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1822 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1823
1824       </div>
1825       <div class="tags">
1826
1827
1828         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1829
1830
1831       </div>
1832     </div>
1833     <div class="padding"></div>
1834
1835     <div class="entry">
1836       <div class="title">
1837         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/GnuCOBOL__a_free_platform_to_learn_and_use_COBOL___nice_free_software.html">GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software</a>
1838       </div>
1839       <div class="date">
1840         29th April 2020
1841       </div>
1842       <div class="body">
1843         <p>The curiosity got the better of me when
1844 <a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot
1845 reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for
1846 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers,
1847 and a few days later it was reported that
1848 <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM
1849 tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p>
1850
1851 <p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to
1852 learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find
1853 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was
1854 already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in
1855 Debian</a>.  It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler"
1856 transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual
1857 Studio to build binaries.</p>
1858
1859 <p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the
1860 quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer
1861 taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced.  A
1862 new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p>
1863
1864 <p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL
1865 introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs.  It was fun to
1866 learn a new programming language.  If you want to test for yourself,
1867 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia
1868 page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p>
1869
1870 <p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how
1871 standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL
1872 test suite, which sound good to me.  It is nice to know it is possible
1873 to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am
1874 very happy such nice free software project as this is available.  If
1875 you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</p>
1876
1877 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1878 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1879 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1880
1881       </div>
1882       <div class="tags">
1883
1884
1885         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1886
1887
1888       </div>
1889     </div>
1890     <div class="padding"></div>
1891
1892     <div class="entry">
1893       <div class="title">
1894         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">Jami/Ring, finally functioning peer to peer communication client</a>
1895       </div>
1896       <div class="date">
1897         19th June 2019
1898       </div>
1899       <div class="body">
1900         <p>Some years ago, in 2016, I
1901 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">wrote
1902 for the first time about</a> the Ring peer to peer messaging system.
1903 It would provide messaging without any central server coordinating the
1904 system and without requiring all users to register a phone number or
1905 own a mobile phone.  Back then, I could not get it to work, and put it
1906 aside until it had seen more development.  A few days ago I decided to
1907 give it another try, and am happy to report that this time I am able
1908 to not only send and receive messages, but also place audio and video
1909 calls.  But only if UDP is not blocked into your network.</p>
1910
1911 <p>The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
1912 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>.  I
1913 tried doing web search for 'ring' when I discovered it for the first
1914 time, and can only applaud this change as it is impossible to find
1915 something called Ring among the noise of other uses of that word.  Now
1916 you can search for 'jami' and this client and
1917 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system</a> is the first hit at
1918 least on duckduckgo.</p>
1919
1920 <p>Jami will by default encrypt messages as well as audio and video
1921 calls, and try to send them directly between the communicating parties
1922 if possible.  If this proves impossible (for example if both ends are
1923 behind NAT), it will use a central SIP TURN server maintained by the
1924 Jami project.  Jami can also be a normal SIP client.  If the SIP
1925 server is unencrypted, the audio and video calls will also be
1926 unencrypted.  This is as far as I know the only case where Jami will
1927 do anything without encryption.</p>
1928
1929 <p>Jami is available for several platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
1930 Android, iOS, and Android TV.  It is included in Debian already.  Jami
1931 also work for those using F-Droid without any Google connections,
1932 while Signal do not.
1933 <a href="https://git.jami.net/savoirfairelinux/ring-project/wikis/technical/Protocol">The
1934 protocol</a> is described in the Ring project wiki.  The system uses a
1935 distributed hash table (DHT) system (similar to BitTorrent) running
1936 over UDP.  On one of the networks I use, I discovered Jami failed to
1937 work.  I tracked this down to the fact that incoming UDP packages
1938 going to ports 1-49999 were blocked, and the DHT would pick a random
1939 port and end up in the low range most of the time.  After talking to
1940 the developers, I solved this by enabling the dhtproxy in the
1941 settings, thus using TCP to talk to a central DHT proxy instead of
1942
1943 peering directly with others.  I've been told the developers are
1944 working on allowing DHT to use TCP to avoid this problem.  I also ran
1945 into a problem when trying to talk to the version of Ring included in
1946 Debian Stable (Stretch).  Apparently the protocol changed between
1947 beta2 and the current version, making these clients incompatible.
1948 Hopefully the protocol will not be made incompatible in the
1949 future.</p>
1950
1951 <p>It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
1952 came across another communication platform I have not tested yet.  The
1953 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)">Tox protocol</a>
1954 and <a href="https://tox.chat/">family of Tox clients</a>.  It might
1955 become the topic of a future blog post.</p>
1956
1957 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1958 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1959 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1960
1961       </div>
1962       <div class="tags">
1963
1964
1965         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1966
1967
1968       </div>
1969     </div>
1970     <div class="padding"></div>
1971
1972     <div class="entry">
1973       <div class="title">
1974         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Strategispillet_Unknown_Horizons_n__tilgjengelig_p__bokm_l.html">Strategispillet Unknown Horizons nå tilgjengelig på bokmål</a>
1975       </div>
1976       <div class="date">
1977         23rd January 2019
1978       </div>
1979       <div class="body">
1980         <p>I høst ble jeg inspirert til å bidra til oversettelsen av
1981 <a href="http://unknown-horizons.org/">strategispillet Unknown
1982 Horizons</a>, og oversatte de nesten 200 strengene i prosjektet til
1983 bokmål.  Deretter har jeg gått å ventet på at det kom en ny utgave som
1984 inneholdt disse oversettelsene.  Nå er endelig ventetiden over.  Den
1985 nye versjonen kom på nyåret, og ble
1986 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/unknown-horizons">lastet opp i
1987 Debian</a> for noen få dager siden.  I går kveld fikk jeg testet det ut, og
1988 må innrømme at oversettelsene fungerer fint.  Fant noen få tekster som
1989 måtte justeres, men ikke noe alvorlig.  Har oppdatert
1990 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/">oversettelsen på
1991 Weblate</a>, slik at neste utgave vil være enda bedre. :)</p>
1992
1993 <p>Spillet er et ressursstyringsspill ala Civilization, og er morsomt
1994 å spille for oss som liker slikt. :)</p>
1995
1996 <p>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
1997 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
1998 til min adresse
1999 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.
2000 Merk, betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)</p>
2001
2002       </div>
2003       <div class="tags">
2004
2005
2006         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
2007
2008
2009       </div>
2010     </div>
2011     <div class="padding"></div>
2012
2013     <div class="entry">
2014       <div class="title">
2015         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_got_everything_you_need_to_program_Micro_bit.html">Debian now got everything you need to program Micro:bit</a>
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="date">
2018         22nd January 2019
2019       </div>
2020       <div class="body">
2021         <p>I am amazed and very pleased to discover that since a few days ago,
2022 everything you need to program the <a href="https://microbit.org/">BBC
2023 micro:bit</a> is available from the Debian archive.  All this is
2024 thanks to the hard work of Nick Morrott and the Debian python
2025 packaging team.  The micro:bit project recommend the mu-editor to
2026 program the microcomputer, as this editor will take care of all the
2027 machinery required to injekt/flash micropython alongside the program
2028 into the micro:bit, as long as the pieces are available.</p>
2029
2030 <p>There are three main pieces involved.  The first to enter Debian
2031 was
2032 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/python-uflash">python-uflash</a>,
2033 which was accepted into the archive 2019-01-12.  The next one was
2034 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mu-editor">mu-editor</a>, which
2035 showed up 2019-01-13.  The final and hardest part to to into the
2036 archive was
2037 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firmware-microbit-micropython">firmware-microbit-micropython</a>,
2038 which needed to get its build system and dependencies into Debian
2039 before it was accepted 2019-01-20.  The last one is already in Debian
2040 Unstable and should enter Debian Testing / Buster in three days.  This
2041 all allow any user of the micro:bit to get going by simply running
2042 'apt install mu-editor' when using Testing or Unstable, and once
2043 Buster is released as stable, all the users of Debian stable will be
2044 catered for.</p>
2045
2046 <p>As a minor final touch, I added rules to
2047 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">the isenkram
2048 package</a> for recognizing micro:bit and recommend the mu-editor
2049 package.  This make sure any user of the isenkram desktop daemon will
2050 get a popup suggesting to install mu-editor then the USB cable from
2051 the micro:bit is inserted for the first time.</p>
2052
2053 <p>This should make it easier to have fun.</p>
2054
2055 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2056 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2057 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2058
2059       </div>
2060       <div class="tags">
2061
2062
2063         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2064
2065
2066       </div>
2067     </div>
2068     <div class="padding"></div>
2069
2070     <div class="entry">
2071       <div class="title">
2072         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Learn_to_program_with_Minetest_on_Debian.html">Learn to program with Minetest on Debian</a>
2073       </div>
2074       <div class="date">
2075         15th December 2018
2076       </div>
2077       <div class="body">
2078         <p>A fun way to learn how to program
2079 <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> is to follow the
2080 instructions in the book
2081 "<a href="https://nostarch.com/programwithminecraft">Learn to program
2082 with Minecraft</a>", which introduces programming in Python to people
2083 who like to play with Minecraft.  The book uses a Python library to
2084 talk to a TCP/IP socket with an API accepting build instructions and
2085 providing information about the current players in a Minecraft world.
2086 The TCP/IP API was first created for the Minecraft implementation for
2087 Raspberry Pi, and has since been ported to some server versions of
2088 Minecraft.  The book contain recipes for those using Windows, MacOSX
2089 and Raspian.  But a little known fact is that you can follow the same
2090 recipes using the free software construction game
2091 <a href="https://minetest.net/">Minetest</a>.</p>
2092
2093 <p>There is <a href="https://github.com/sprintingkiwi/pycraft_mod">a
2094 Minetest module implementing the same API</a>, making it possible to
2095 use the Python programs coded to talk to Minecraft with Minetest too.
2096 I
2097 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/minetest-mod-pycraft_0.20%2Bgit20180331.0376a0a%2Bdfsg-1.html">uploaded
2098 this module</a> to Debian two weeks ago, and as soon as it clears the
2099 FTP masters NEW queue, learning to program Python with Minetest on
2100 Debian will be a simple 'apt install' away.  The Debian package is
2101 maintained as part of the Debian Games team, and
2102 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/unfinished/minetest-mod-pycraft">the
2103 packaging rules</a> are currently located under 'unfinished' on
2104 Salsa.</p>
2105
2106 <p>You will most likely need to install several of the Minetest
2107 modules in Debian for the examples included with the library to work
2108 well, as there are several blocks used by the example scripts that are
2109 provided via modules in Minetest.  Without the required blocks, a
2110 simple stone block is used instead.  My initial testing with a analog
2111 clock did not get gold arms as instructed in the python library, but
2112 instead used stone arms.</p>
2113
2114 <p>I tried to find a way to add the API to the desktop version of
2115 Minecraft, but were unable to find any working recipes.  The
2116 <a href="https://www.epiphanydigest.com/tag/minecraft-python-api/">recipes</a>
2117 I <a href="https://github.com/kbsriram/mcpiapi">found</a> are only
2118 working with a standalone Minecraft server setup.  Are there any
2119 options to use with the normal desktop version?</p>
2120
2121 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2122 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2123 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2124
2125       </div>
2126       <div class="tags">
2127
2128
2129         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2130
2131
2132       </div>
2133     </div>
2134     <div class="padding"></div>
2135
2136     <div class="entry">
2137       <div class="title">
2138         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_an_official_MIME_type_for_patches_.html">Time for an official MIME type for patches?</a>
2139       </div>
2140       <div class="date">
2141          1st November 2018
2142       </div>
2143       <div class="body">
2144         <p>As part of my involvement in
2145 <a href="https://gitlab.com/OsloMet-ABI/nikita-noark5-core">the Nikita
2146 archive API project</a>, I've been importing a fairly large lump of
2147 emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would
2148 go.  I picked a subset of <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">my
2149 notmuch email database</a>, all public emails sent to me via
2150 @lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import.
2151 In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in
2152 these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed
2153 that one of the most common attachment formats do not have
2154 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">an
2155 official MIME type</a> registered with IANA/IETF.  The output from
2156 diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats
2157 included in these emails.  At the moment people seem to use either
2158 text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered.  It
2159 would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used
2160 everywhere.</p>
2161
2162 <p>To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought
2163 up the topic on
2164 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/media-types">the
2165 media-types mailing list</a>.  If you are interested in discussion
2166 which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in
2167 making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like
2168 to join the discussion?</p>
2169
2170 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2171 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2172 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2173
2174       </div>
2175       <div class="tags">
2176
2177
2178         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
2179
2180
2181       </div>
2182     </div>
2183     <div class="padding"></div>
2184
2185     <div class="entry">
2186       <div class="title">
2187         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Google_Drive_sync_using_grive_in_Debian.html">Automatic Google Drive sync using grive in Debian</a>
2188       </div>
2189       <div class="date">
2190          4th October 2018
2191       </div>
2192       <div class="body">
2193         <p>A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian.  To try to
2194 rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive.
2195 I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this
2196 automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from
2197 <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/">the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA</a> to do the
2198 task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to
2199 run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync.
2200 Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.</p>
2201
2202 <p>I first created <tt>~/googledrive</tt>, entered the directory and
2203 ran '<tt>grive -a</tt>' to authenticate the machine/user.  Next, I
2204 created a autostart hook in <tt>~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop</tt>
2205 to start the sync when the user log in:</p>
2206
2207 <p><blockquote><pre>
2208 [Desktop Entry]
2209 Name=Google drive autosync
2210 Type=Application
2211 Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
2212 </pre></blockquote></p>
2213
2214 <p>Finally, I wrote the <tt>~/bin/grive-sync</tt> script to sync
2215 ~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.</p>
2216
2217 <p><blockquote><pre>
2218 #!/bin/sh
2219 set -e
2220 cd ~/
2221 cleanup() {
2222     if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
2223         kill $syncpid
2224     fi
2225 }
2226 trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
2227 /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
2228 syncpdi=$!
2229 while true; do
2230     if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
2231         echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
2232         exit 1
2233     fi
2234     if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
2235         /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
2236     fi
2237     sleep 300
2238 done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
2239 </pre></blockquote></p>
2240
2241 <p>Feel free to use the setup if you want.  It can be assumed to be
2242 GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I
2243 doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.</p>
2244
2245 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2246 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2247 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2248
2249       </div>
2250       <div class="tags">
2251
2252
2253         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2254
2255
2256       </div>
2257     </div>
2258     <div class="padding"></div>
2259
2260     <div class="entry">
2261       <div class="title">
2262         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html">Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</a>
2263       </div>
2264       <div class="date">
2265          2nd September 2018
2266       </div>
2267       <div class="body">
2268         <p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
2269 tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
2270 insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
2271 web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
2272 to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
2273 available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
2274 have check out a nice cover band.</p>
2275
2276 <p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2277   --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
2278   "params": {"item": { "file":
2279   "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
2280   http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
2281
2282 <p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
2283 first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
2284 and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
2285 Chromecast. :)</p>
2286
2287 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2288 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2289 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2290
2291       </div>
2292       <div class="tags">
2293
2294
2295         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2296
2297
2298       </div>
2299     </div>
2300     <div class="padding"></div>
2301
2302     <div class="entry">
2303       <div class="title">
2304         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sharing_images_with_friends_and_family_using_RSS_and_EXIF_XMP_metadata.html">Sharing images with friends and family using RSS and EXIF/XMP metadata</a>
2305       </div>
2306       <div class="date">
2307         31st July 2018
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="body">
2310         <p>For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images
2311 with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to
2312 place images from my personal life under the control of strangers
2313 working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox.  The last few days I
2314 have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to
2315 share it with you.  I would like to publish images on a server under
2316 my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some
2317 free and open standard to the images I published.  As my primary
2318 language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using
2319 UTF-8.  Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable
2320 of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the
2321 &lt;enclosure&gt; RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier
2322 of such frames.  In the end I gave up that approach.</p>
2323
2324 <p>Some months ago, I discovered that
2325 <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">XScreensaver</a> is able to
2326 read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on
2327 my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from
2328 NASA.  This proved to work well.  More recently I discovered that
2329 <a href="https://kodi.tv">Kodi</a> (both using
2330 <a href="https://www.openelec.tv/">OpenELEC</a> and
2331 <a href="https://libreelec.tv">LibreELEC</a>) provide the
2332 <a href="https://github.com/grinsted/script.screensaver.feedreader">Feedreader</a>
2333 screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news.  For
2334 fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up
2335 a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a
2336 screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.</p>
2337
2338 <p>Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate
2339 a RSS feed for the Kodi instance.  I adjusted my <a
2340 href="https://freedombox.org/">Freedombox</a> instance, created
2341 /var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract
2342 title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the
2343 RSS file.  I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the
2344 libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP
2345 tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not.  The relevant EXIF
2346 tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives.  XMP
2347 seem to have the support I need.</p>
2348
2349 <p>I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to
2350 use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software
2351 photo managing software.  I ended up using the tags set using this
2352 exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:</p>
2353
2354 <blockquote><pre>
2355 exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
2356   -description='The RSS image description.' \
2357   -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
2358 </pre></blockquote>
2359
2360 <p>I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were
2361 invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject".  I
2362 use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be
2363 shared with my family.  Images with this keyword set are located and
2364 copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.</p>
2365
2366 <p>Are there better ways to do this?  Get in touch if you have better
2367 suggestions.</p>
2368
2369 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2370 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2371 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2372
2373       </div>
2374       <div class="tags">
2375
2376
2377         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2378
2379
2380       </div>
2381     </div>
2382     <div class="padding"></div>
2383
2384     <div class="entry">
2385       <div class="title">
2386         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</a>
2387       </div>
2388       <div class="date">
2389         12th July 2018
2390       </div>
2391       <div class="body">
2392         <p>Last night, I wrote
2393 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
2394 recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
2395 During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
2396 suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
2397 approach requiring no setup at all.  It is a single script that take
2398 care of it all.</p>
2399
2400 <p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
2401 desktop and stream it to Kodi.  This fixed the video quality issue I
2402 saw initially.  It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
2403 Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
2404 <a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
2405 Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
2406 GStreamer.  Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial.  Copy
2407 the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
2408 server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
2409 up on the Kodi screen.  Note, it depend on multicast on the local
2410 network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
2411 script must be modified.  Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
2412 I only care about the picture part.</p>
2413
2414 <blockquote><pre>
2415 #!/bin/sh
2416 #
2417 # Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi.  See
2418 # http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
2419 # for backgorund information.
2420
2421 # Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
2422 # killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
2423 # kodi server).  Do the same when interrupting this script.
2424 kodicmd() {
2425     host="$1"
2426     cmd="$2"
2427     params="$3"
2428     curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2429          --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
2430          "http://$host/jsonrpc"
2431 }
2432 cleanup() {
2433     if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
2434         # Stop the playing when we end
2435         playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
2436                             jq .result[].playerid)
2437         kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
2438     fi
2439     if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
2440         kill "$gstpid"
2441     fi
2442 }
2443 trap cleanup EXIT INT
2444
2445 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
2446     kodihost=$1
2447     shift
2448 else
2449     kodihost=kodi.local
2450 fi
2451
2452 mcast=239.255.0.1
2453 mcastport=1234
2454 mcastttl=1
2455
2456 pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
2457   cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
2458 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2459   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2460   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2461   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2462   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2463   udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2464   pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
2465   > /dev/null 2>&1 &
2466 gstpid=$!
2467
2468 # Give stream a second to get going
2469 sleep 1
2470
2471 # Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
2472 kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
2473         "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
2474
2475 # wait for gst to end
2476 wait "$gstpid"
2477 </pre></blockquote>
2478
2479 <p>I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.</p>
2480
2481 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2482 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2483 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2484
2485       </div>
2486       <div class="tags">
2487
2488
2489         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2490
2491
2492       </div>
2493     </div>
2494     <div class="padding"></div>
2495
2496     <div class="entry">
2497       <div class="title">
2498         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</a>
2499       </div>
2500       <div class="date">
2501         12th July 2018
2502       </div>
2503       <div class="body">
2504         <p>PS: See
2505 <ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
2506 followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
2507
2508 <p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
2509 my projector connected to Kodi.  I sadly had to admit that I had no
2510 idea, as it was a task I never had tried.  Since then, I have been
2511 looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
2512 install on either side.  Today I found a way that seem to kind of
2513 work.  Not great, but it is a start.</p>
2514
2515 <p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
2516 <a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
2517 DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
2518 local storage enough to store the stream locally.  This is not going
2519 to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
2520 impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
2521
2522 <p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
2523 video stream that Kodi could play.  Preferably using
2524 broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
2525 side when starting such stream.  Unfortunately, the only recipe I
2526 could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
2527 seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
2528
2529 <p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working!  Unfortunately I
2530 have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
2531 sending command and the file on the Kodi server.  But it is showing my
2532 desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
2533 the programs I work on.</p>
2534
2535 <p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
2536 rtp and rtsp recipes from
2537 <a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
2538 VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
2539 this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
2540
2541 <blockquote><pre>
2542 vlc screen:// --sout \
2543   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
2544 </pre></blockquote>
2545
2546 <p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
2547 same IP address:</p>
2548
2549 <blockquote><pre>
2550 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
2551   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2552 </pre></blockquote>
2553
2554 <p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address.  As far
2555 as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work.  In other
2556 words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
2557 to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
2558 recipe.  To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
2559 file while the VLC stream is running.  The desktop then show up in my
2560 big screen. :)</p>
2561
2562 <p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
2563 the audio quality is really bad.  No idea if the problem is package
2564 loss or bad parameters for the transcode.  I do not know VLC nor Kodi
2565 enough to tell.</p>
2566
2567 <p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
2568 succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The "screen:"
2569 input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
2570 package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
2571 message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'.  Check the log
2572 for details."  He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
2573 of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
2574 It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
2575 window in the desktop view.  In sum, this give us this command line on
2576 the source end
2577
2578 <blockquote><pre>
2579 cvlc screen:// --sout \
2580   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
2581 </pre></blockquote>
2582
2583 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2584
2585 <blockquote><pre>
2586 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
2587   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2588 </pre></blockquote>
2589
2590 <p>Still bad image quality, though.  But I did discover that streaming
2591 a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
2592 audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
2593 parts, not the rtsp part.  I've tried to change the vb and ab
2594 parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
2595 difference.</p>
2596
2597 <p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
2598 gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great!  He also
2599 provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
2600 its source.  By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
2601 with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
2602 multicast address on port 1234:
2603
2604 <blockquote><pre>
2605 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2606   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2607   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2608   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2609   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2610   udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2611   pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
2612     grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' |  cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
2613   audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
2614 </pre></blockquote>
2615
2616 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2617
2618 <blockquote><pre>
2619 echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
2620   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2621 </pre></blockquote>
2622
2623 <p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source.  It might not
2624 pick the one you need.  This approach will of course lead to trouble
2625 if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
2626 Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
2627 local network.  If the value is increased, your screen will be
2628 broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
2629 multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
2630
2631 <p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
2632 could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
2633 The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
2634 seem to be doing a better job.</p>
2635
2636 <blockquote><pre>
2637 cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
2638 </pre></blockquote>
2639
2640 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2641 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2642 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2643
2644       </div>
2645       <div class="tags">
2646
2647
2648         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2649
2650
2651       </div>
2652     </div>
2653     <div class="padding"></div>
2654
2655     <div class="entry">
2656       <div class="title">
2657         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in 2018?</a>
2658       </div>
2659       <div class="date">
2660          9th July 2018
2661       </div>
2662       <div class="body">
2663         <p>Five years ago,
2664 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">I
2665 measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was</a>, by
2666 analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive.  Since
2667 then, the DEP-11 AppStream system has been put into production, making
2668 the task a lot easier.  This made me want to repeat the measurement,
2669 to see how much things changed.  Here are the new numbers, for
2670 unstable only this time:
2671
2672 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2673
2674 <pre>
2675   count MIME type
2676   ----- -----------------------
2677      56 image/jpeg
2678      55 image/png
2679      49 image/tiff
2680      48 image/gif
2681      39 image/bmp
2682      38 text/plain
2683      37 audio/mpeg
2684      34 application/ogg
2685      33 audio/x-flac
2686      32 audio/x-mp3
2687      30 audio/x-wav
2688      30 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
2689      29 image/x-portable-pixmap
2690      27 inode/directory
2691      27 image/x-portable-bitmap
2692      27 audio/x-mpeg
2693      26 application/x-ogg
2694      25 audio/x-mpegurl
2695      25 audio/ogg
2696      24 text/html
2697 </pre>
2698
2699 <p>The list was created like this using a sid chroot: "cat
2700 /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz| zcat | awk '/^
2701 - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20"</p>
2702
2703 <p>It is interesting to see how image formats have passed text/plain
2704 as the most announced supported MIME type.  These days, thanks to the
2705 AppStream system, if you run into a file format you do not know, and
2706 want to figure out which packages support the format, you can find the
2707 MIME type of the file using "file --mime &lt;filename&gt;", and then
2708 look up all packages announcing support for this format in their
2709 AppStream metadata (XML or .desktop file) using "appstreamcli
2710 what-provides mimetype &lt;mime-type&gt;.  For example if you, like
2711 me, want to know which packages support inode/directory, you can get a
2712 list like this:</p>
2713
2714 <p><blockquote><pre>
2715 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype inode/directory | grep Package: | sort
2716 Package: anjuta
2717 Package: audacious
2718 Package: baobab
2719 Package: cervisia
2720 Package: chirp
2721 Package: dolphin
2722 Package: doublecmd-common
2723 Package: easytag
2724 Package: enlightenment
2725 Package: ephoto
2726 Package: filelight
2727 Package: gwenview
2728 Package: k4dirstat
2729 Package: kaffeine
2730 Package: kdesvn
2731 Package: kid3
2732 Package: kid3-qt
2733 Package: nautilus
2734 Package: nemo
2735 Package: pcmanfm
2736 Package: pcmanfm-qt
2737 Package: qweborf
2738 Package: ranger
2739 Package: sirikali
2740 Package: spacefm
2741 Package: spacefm
2742 Package: vifm
2743 %
2744 </pre></blockquote></p>
2745
2746 <p>Using the same method, I can quickly discover that the Sketchup file
2747 format is not yet supported by any package in Debian:</p>
2748
2749 <p><blockquote><pre>
2750 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/vnd.sketchup.skp
2751 Could not find component providing 'mimetype::application/vnd.sketchup.skp'.
2752 %
2753 </pre></blockquote></p>
2754
2755 <p>Yesterday I used it to figure out which packages support the STL 3D
2756 format:</p>
2757
2758 <p><blockquote><pre>
2759 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/sla|grep Package
2760 Package: cura
2761 Package: meshlab
2762 Package: printrun
2763 %
2764 </pre></blockquote></p>
2765
2766 <p>PS: A new version of Cura was uploaded to Debian yesterday.</p>
2767
2768 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2769 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2770 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2771
2772       </div>
2773       <div class="tags">
2774
2775
2776         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2777
2778
2779       </div>
2780     </div>
2781     <div class="padding"></div>
2782
2783     <div class="entry">
2784       <div class="title">
2785         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_APT_upgrade_without_enough_free_space_on_the_disk___.html">Debian APT upgrade without enough free space on the disk...</a>
2786       </div>
2787       <div class="date">
2788          8th July 2018
2789       </div>
2790       <div class="body">
2791         <p>Quite regularly, I let my Debian Sid/Unstable chroot stay untouch
2792 for a while, and when I need to update it there is not enough free
2793 space on the disk for apt to do a normal 'apt upgrade'.  I normally
2794 would resolve the issue by doing 'apt install &lt;somepackages&gt;' to
2795 upgrade only some of the packages in one batch, until the amount of
2796 packages to download fall below the amount of free space available.
2797 Today, I had about 500 packages to upgrade, and after a while I got
2798 tired of trying to install chunks of packages manually.  I concluded
2799 that I did not have the spare hours required to complete the task, and
2800 decided to see if I could automate it.  I came up with this small
2801 script which I call 'apt-in-chunks':</p>
2802
2803 <p><blockquote><pre>
2804 #!/bin/sh
2805 #
2806 # Upgrade packages when the disk is too full to upgrade every
2807 # upgradable package in one lump.  Fetching packages to upgrade using
2808 # apt, and then installing using dpkg, to avoid changing the package
2809 # flag for manual/automatic.
2810
2811 set -e
2812
2813 ignore() {
2814     if [ "$1" ]; then
2815         grep -v "$1"
2816     else
2817         cat
2818     fi
2819 }
2820
2821 for p in $(apt list --upgradable | ignore "$@" |cut -d/ -f1 | grep -v '^Listing...'); do
2822     echo "Upgrading $p"
2823     apt clean
2824     apt install --download-only -y $p
2825     for f in /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do
2826         if [ -e "$f" ]; then
2827             dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
2828             break
2829         fi
2830     done
2831 done
2832 </pre></blockquote></p>
2833
2834 <p>The script will extract the list of packages to upgrade, try to
2835 download the packages needed to upgrade one package, install the
2836 downloaded packages using dpkg.  The idea is to upgrade packages
2837 without changing the APT mark for the package (ie the one recording of
2838 the package was manually requested or pulled in as a dependency).  To
2839 use it, simply run it as root from the command line.  If it fail, try
2840 'apt install -f' to clean up the mess and run the script again.  This
2841 might happen if the new packages conflict with one of the old
2842 packages.  dpkg is unable to remove, while apt can do this.</p>
2843
2844 <p>It take one option, a package to ignore in the list of packages to
2845 upgrade.  The option to ignore a package is there to be able to skip
2846 the packages that are simply too large to unpack.  Today this was
2847 'ghc', but I have run into other large packages causing similar
2848 problems earlier (like TeX).</p>
2849
2850 <p>Update 2018-07-08: Thanks to Paul Wise, I am aware of two
2851 alternative ways to handle this.  The "unattended-upgrades
2852 --minimal-upgrade-steps" option will try to calculate upgrade sets for
2853 each package to upgrade, and then upgrade them in order, smallest set
2854 first.  It might be a better option than my above mentioned script.
2855 Also, "aptutude upgrade" can upgrade single packages, thus avoiding
2856 the need for using "dpkg -i" in the script above.</p>
2857
2858 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2859 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2860 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2861
2862       </div>
2863       <div class="tags">
2864
2865
2866         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2867
2868
2869       </div>
2870     </div>
2871     <div class="padding"></div>
2872
2873     <div class="entry">
2874       <div class="title">
2875         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html">Version 3.1 of Cura, the 3D print slicer, is now in Debian</a>
2876       </div>
2877       <div class="date">
2878         13th February 2018
2879       </div>
2880       <div class="body">
2881         <p>A new version of the
2882 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
2883 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
2884 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
2885 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
2886 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
2887 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
2888 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
2889 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
2890 well.</p>
2891
2892 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
2893 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
2894 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
2895 in Debian.</p>
2896
2897 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2898 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2899 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2900
2901       </div>
2902       <div class="tags">
2903
2904
2905         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2906
2907
2908       </div>
2909     </div>
2910     <div class="padding"></div>
2911
2912     <div class="entry">
2913       <div class="title">
2914         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html">Cura, the nice 3D print slicer, is now in Debian Unstable</a>
2915       </div>
2916       <div class="date">
2917         17th December 2017
2918       </div>
2919       <div class="body">
2920         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
2921 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
2922 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
2923 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
2924 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
2925 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
2926 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
2927 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
2928 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
2929 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
2930 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
2931 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
2932 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
2933
2934 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
2935 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
2936 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
2937 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
2938 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
2939
2940 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
2941 team, flocking together on the
2942 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
2943 mailing list and the
2944 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
2945 IRC channel.</p>
2946
2947 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
2948 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
2949 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
2950
2951       </div>
2952       <div class="tags">
2953
2954
2955         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2956
2957
2958       </div>
2959     </div>
2960     <div class="padding"></div>
2961
2962     <div class="entry">
2963       <div class="title">
2964         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Generating_3D_prints_in_Debian_using_Cura_and_Slic3r__prusa_.html">Generating 3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)</a>
2965       </div>
2966       <div class="date">
2967          9th October 2017
2968       </div>
2969       <div class="body">
2970         <p>At my nearby maker space,
2971 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
2972 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
2973 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
2974 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
2975 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
2976 as the software involved,
2977 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
2978 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
2979 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
2980 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
2981 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
2982 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
2983 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
2984
2985 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
2986 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
2987 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
2988 on
2989 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2990 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
2991
2992 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
2993 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
2994 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
2995 upstream version.</p>
2996
2997 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
2998 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
2999 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
3000 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
3001 Debian, check out
3002 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
3003 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
3004 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
3005
3006 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3007 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3008 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3009
3010       </div>
3011       <div class="tags">
3012
3013
3014         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3015
3016
3017       </div>
3018     </div>
3019     <div class="padding"></div>
3020
3021     <div class="entry">
3022       <div class="title">
3023         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html">Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass</a>
3024       </div>
3025       <div class="date">
3026         29th September 2017
3027       </div>
3028       <div class="body">
3029         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
3030 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
3031 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
3032 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
3033 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
3034 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
3035 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
3036 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
3037 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
3038 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
3039 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
3040 listen.</p>
3041
3042 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
3043 visualizing this information up and running for
3044 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
3045 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
3046 library.  The solution is based on the
3047 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
3048 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
3049 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
3050 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
3051 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
3052 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
3053 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
3054 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
3055
3056 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
3057 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
3058 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
3059 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
3060 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
3061 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
3062 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
3063 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
3064
3065 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
3066 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
3067 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
3068 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
3069 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
3070 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
3071 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
3072 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
3073 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
3074 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
3075 mentioned in
3076 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
3077 issue for the topic</a>.
3078
3079 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
3080
3081       </div>
3082       <div class="tags">
3083
3084
3085         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3086
3087
3088       </div>
3089     </div>
3090     <div class="padding"></div>
3091
3092     <div class="entry">
3093       <div class="title">
3094         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you</a>
3095       </div>
3096       <div class="date">
3097         24th September 2017
3098       </div>
3099       <div class="body">
3100         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
3101 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
3102 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
3103 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
3104 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
3105 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
3106 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
3107 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
3108 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
3109
3110 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
3111 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
3112 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
3113 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
3114
3115 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
3116 clone of two python scripts:</p>
3117
3118 <ol>
3119
3120 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
3121   testing).</li>
3122
3123 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
3124   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
3125
3126 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
3127   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
3128
3129 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
3130
3131 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
3132   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
3133   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
3134
3135 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
3136   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
3137
3138 </ol>
3139
3140 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
3141 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
3142 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
3143 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
3144 very cheaply
3145 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
3146 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
3147 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
3148
3149 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
3150 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
3151 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
3152 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
3153 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
3154 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
3155 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
3156 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
3157
3158 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
3159 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
3160 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
3161 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
3162 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
3163 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
3164 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
3165 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
3166 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
3167 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
3168 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
3169 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
3170
3171       </div>
3172       <div class="tags">
3173
3174
3175         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3176
3177
3178       </div>
3179     </div>
3180     <div class="padding"></div>
3181
3182     <div class="entry">
3183       <div class="title">
3184         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher using Debian</a>
3185       </div>
3186       <div class="date">
3187          9th August 2017
3188       </div>
3189       <div class="body">
3190         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
3191 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
3192 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
3193 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
3194 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
3195 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
3196 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
3197
3198 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
3199 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
3200 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
3201 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
3202 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
3203 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
3204 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
3205 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
3206 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
3207 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
3208 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
3209 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
3210 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
3211
3212 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
3213 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
3214 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
3215 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
3216 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
3217 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
3218 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
3219 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
3220 collector for a few days now.</p>
3221
3222 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
3223
3224 <ol>
3225
3226 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
3227
3228 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
3229 <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>
3230
3231 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
3232
3233 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
3234 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
3235 found a GSM station).</li>
3236
3237 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
3238
3239 </ol>
3240
3241 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
3242 running, I decided to package
3243 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
3244 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
3245 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
3246 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
3247 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
3248
3249 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
3250 commercial tools like
3251 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
3252 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
3253 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
3254 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
3255 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
3256 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
3257 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
3258 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
3259 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
3260 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
3261 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
3262 of government officials...</p>
3263
3264 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
3265 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
3266 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
3267 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
3268 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
3269 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
3270 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
3271 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
3272 one frequency?</p>
3273
3274       </div>
3275       <div class="tags">
3276
3277
3278         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3279
3280
3281       </div>
3282     </div>
3283     <div class="padding"></div>
3284
3285     <div class="entry">
3286       <div class="title">
3287         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available</a>
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="date">
3290         25th July 2017
3291       </div>
3292       <div class="body">
3293         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
3294
3295 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
3296 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
3297 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
3298 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
3299 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
3300 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
3301 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
3302 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
3303 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
3304 as a web page</a>.</p>
3305
3306 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
3307 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
3308 in
3309 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
3310 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
3311 and
3312 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
3313 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
3314 project.  I hope
3315 "<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
3316 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
3317
3318       </div>
3319       <div class="tags">
3320
3321
3322         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3323
3324
3325       </div>
3326     </div>
3327     <div class="padding"></div>
3328
3329     <div class="entry">
3330       <div class="title">
3331         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
3332       </div>
3333       <div class="date">
3334          3rd June 2017
3335       </div>
3336       <div class="body">
3337         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
3338 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
3339 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
3340 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
3341 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
3342 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
3343 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
3344
3345 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
3346
3347 <blockquote>
3348 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
3349 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
3350 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
3351
3352 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
3353 på temaet:</p>
3354 <ol>
3355 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
3356 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
3357 </ol>
3358
3359 </blockquote>
3360
3361 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
3362
3363 <blockquote>
3364 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
3365 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
3366 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
3367
3368 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
3369 temaet:</p>
3370
3371 <ol>
3372 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
3373 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
3374 </ol>
3375
3376 </blockquote>
3377
3378 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
3379 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
3380 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
3381 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
3382 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
3383 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
3384 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
3385
3386       </div>
3387       <div class="tags">
3388
3389
3390         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
3391
3392
3393       </div>
3394     </div>
3395     <div class="padding"></div>
3396
3397     <div class="entry">
3398       <div class="title">
3399         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
3400       </div>
3401       <div class="date">
3402          9th March 2017
3403       </div>
3404       <div class="body">
3405         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
3406 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
3407 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
3408 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
3409 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
3410 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
3411 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
3412 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
3413
3414 <p><blockquote>
3415 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
3416 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
3417 </blockquote></p>
3418
3419 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
3420 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
3421 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
3422 are noticed.</p>
3423
3424 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
3425 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
3426 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
3427 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
3428 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
3429 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
3430
3431 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
3432 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
3433 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
3434 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
3435 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
3436 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
3437
3438 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
3439
3440 <p><blockquote><pre>
3441 [...]
3442 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
3443 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
3444         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
3445         age:    7863311
3446         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
3447         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
3448         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
3449         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
3450         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
3451         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
3452         per-op statistics
3453                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3454              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
3455              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
3456               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
3457               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
3458             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
3459                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
3460                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
3461               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
3462                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
3463              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
3464                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
3465               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
3466                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
3467               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
3468                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
3469              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
3470          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
3471               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
3472               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
3473             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
3474               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3475
3476 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
3477 [...]
3478 </pre></blockquote></p>
3479
3480 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
3481 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
3482 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
3483 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
3484 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
3485 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
3486 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
3487 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
3488 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
3489 mount options.</p>
3490
3491 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
3492 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
3493 But according to
3494 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
3495 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
3496 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
3497 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
3498 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
3499 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
3500
3501 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
3502 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
3503 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
3504 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
3505 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
3506
3507       </div>
3508       <div class="tags">
3509
3510
3511         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
3512
3513
3514       </div>
3515     </div>
3516     <div class="padding"></div>
3517
3518     <div class="entry">
3519       <div class="title">
3520         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</a>
3521       </div>
3522       <div class="date">
3523          3rd March 2017
3524       </div>
3525       <div class="body">
3526         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
3527 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
3528 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
3529 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
3530 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
3531 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
3532 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
3533 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
3534 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
3535
3536 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
3537
3538 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
3539 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
3540 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
3541 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
3542 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
3543 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
3544 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
3545 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
3546
3547       </div>
3548       <div class="tags">
3549
3550
3551         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3552
3553
3554       </div>
3555     </div>
3556     <div class="padding"></div>
3557
3558     <div class="entry">
3559       <div class="title">
3560         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
3561       </div>
3562       <div class="date">
3563          1st March 2017
3564       </div>
3565       <div class="body">
3566         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
3567 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
3568 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
3569 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
3570 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
3571 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
3572 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
3573 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
3574 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
3575 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
3576 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3577
3578 <blockquote><pre>
3579 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3580   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3581   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3582      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3583      sleep 1; \
3584   done
3585 300
3586 0+1 oppføringer inn
3587 0+1 oppføringer ut
3588 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
3589 4
3590 8
3591 12
3592 17
3593 21
3594 %
3595 </pre></blockquote>
3596
3597 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
3598 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
3599 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
3600 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3601
3602 <blockquote><pre>
3603 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3604   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3605   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3606      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3607      sleep 1; \
3608   done
3609 1079
3610 0+1 oppføringer inn
3611 0+1 oppføringer ut
3612 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
3613 433
3614 1028
3615 1031
3616 1035
3617 1038
3618 %
3619 </pre></blockquote>
3620
3621 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
3622 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
3623
3624 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
3625 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
3626 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
3627 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
3628 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
3629 post.</p>
3630
3631       </div>
3632       <div class="tags">
3633
3634
3635         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3636
3637
3638       </div>
3639     </div>
3640     <div class="padding"></div>
3641
3642     <div class="entry">
3643       <div class="title">
3644         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
3645       </div>
3646       <div class="date">
3647          9th January 2017
3648       </div>
3649       <div class="body">
3650         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
3651 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
3652 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
3653 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
3654 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
3655 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
3656 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
3657 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
3658 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
3659 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
3660 this:
3661
3662 <p><pre>
3663 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
3664  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
3665  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
3666  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
3667  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
3668  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
3669  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
3670  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
3671  8  * * *
3672  9  * * *
3673 [...]
3674 </pre></p>
3675
3676 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
3677 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
3678 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
3679 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
3680 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
3681 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
3682 traceroute request.</p>
3683
3684 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
3685 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
3686 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
3687 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
3688 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
3689
3690 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
3691 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
3692 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
3693 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
3694 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
3695 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
3696 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
3697 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
3698 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
3699
3700 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
3701 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
3702 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
3703 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
3704 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
3705 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
3706 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
3707 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
3708 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
3709 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
3710 render the page (in HAR format using
3711 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
3712 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
3713 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
3714 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
3715 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
3716
3717 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
3718 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>
3719
3720 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
3721 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
3722 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
3723 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
3724 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
3725 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
3726 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
3727 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
3728 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
3729 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
3730 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
3731 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
3732 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
3733 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
3734
3735 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
3736 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>
3737
3738 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
3739 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
3740 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
3741 question.
3742 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
3743 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
3744 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
3745 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
3746 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
3747 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
3748 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
3749
3750 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
3751 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>
3752
3753 <p>In the process, I came across the
3754 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
3755 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
3756 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
3757 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
3758 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
3759 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
3760 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
3761 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
3762 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
3763 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
3764 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
3765 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
3766 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
3767 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
3768
3769 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
3770 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>
3771
3772 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
3773 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
3774 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
3775 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
3776
3777 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
3778 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
3779 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
3780 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
3781 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
3782 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
3783 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
3784
3785 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
3786 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
3787 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
3788 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
3789 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
3790 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
3791 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
3792
3793 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
3794 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
3795 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
3796 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
3797
3798 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3799 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3800 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3801
3802       </div>
3803       <div class="tags">
3804
3805
3806         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3807
3808
3809       </div>
3810     </div>
3811     <div class="padding"></div>
3812
3813     <div class="entry">
3814       <div class="title">
3815         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
3816       </div>
3817       <div class="date">
3818         23rd December 2016
3819       </div>
3820       <div class="body">
3821         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
3822 readers probably know, I have been working on the
3823 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
3824 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
3825 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
3826 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
3827 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
3828 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
3829 metadata format.  And today,
3830 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
3831 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
3832 ie using fnmatch():</p>
3833
3834 <p><pre>
3835 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
3836   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3837 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
3838 Name: pymissile
3839 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
3840 Package: pymissile
3841 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
3842 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
3843 Name: libnxt
3844 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
3845 Package: libnxt
3846 ---
3847 Identifier: t2n [generic]
3848 Name: t2n
3849 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
3850 Package: t2n
3851 ---
3852 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
3853 Name: python-nxt
3854 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
3855 Package: python-nxt
3856 ---
3857 Identifier: nbc [generic]
3858 Name: nbc
3859 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
3860 Package: nbc
3861 %
3862 </pre></p>
3863
3864 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
3865 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
3866
3867 <p><pre>
3868 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3869 pymissile
3870 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
3871 libnxt
3872 nbc
3873 python-nxt
3874 t2n
3875 %
3876 </pre></p>
3877
3878 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
3879 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
3880
3881 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
3882 make the most of the hardware they have, please
3883 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
3884 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
3885 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
3886 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
3887 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
3888 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
3889 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
3890 part of my involvement in
3891 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
3892 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
3893 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
3894 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
3895 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
3896 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
3897 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
3898 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
3899 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
3900
3901 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3902 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3903 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3904
3905       </div>
3906       <div class="tags">
3907
3908
3909         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3910
3911
3912       </div>
3913     </div>
3914     <div class="padding"></div>
3915
3916     <div class="entry">
3917       <div class="title">
3918         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
3919       </div>
3920       <div class="date">
3921         20th December 2016
3922       </div>
3923       <div class="body">
3924         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
3925 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
3926 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
3927 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
3928 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
3929 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
3930 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
3931 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
3932 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
3933 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
3934
3935 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
3936
3937 <p><pre>
3938 % isenkram-lookup
3939 bluez
3940 cheese
3941 ethtool
3942 fprintd
3943 fprintd-demo
3944 gkrellm-thinkbat
3945 hdapsd
3946 libpam-fprintd
3947 pidgin-blinklight
3948 thinkfan
3949 tlp
3950 tp-smapi-dkms
3951 tp-smapi-source
3952 tpb
3953 %
3954 </pre></p>
3955
3956 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
3957 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
3958 I have all the firmware my machine need:
3959
3960 <p><pre>
3961 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3962 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3963 %
3964 </pre></p>
3965
3966 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
3967 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
3968 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
3969 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
3970 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
3971 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
3972 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
3973 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
3974
3975 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
3976 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
3977 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
3978
3979 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
3980 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
3981 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
3982 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
3983 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
3984 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
3985 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
3986 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
3987 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
3988 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
3989 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
3990 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
3991 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
3992 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
3993 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
3994 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
3995 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
3996 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
3997 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
3998 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
3999 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
4000 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
4001 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
4002 zd1211-firmware</p>
4003
4004 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
4005 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
4006 maintainer to
4007 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
4008 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
4009 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
4010 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
4011
4012 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
4013 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
4014 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
4015 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
4016 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
4017
4018       </div>
4019       <div class="tags">
4020
4021
4022         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4023
4024
4025       </div>
4026     </div>
4027     <div class="padding"></div>
4028
4029     <div class="entry">
4030       <div class="title">
4031         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="date">
4034         11th December 2016
4035       </div>
4036       <div class="body">
4037         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
4038
4039 <p>In my early years, I played
4040 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
4041 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
4042 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
4043 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
4044 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
4045 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
4046 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
4047 small.</p>
4048
4049 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
4050 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
4051 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
4052 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
4053 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
4054 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
4055 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
4056 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
4057 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
4058
4059 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
4060 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
4061 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
4062 advantages of the
4063 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
4064 where information about each planet is easily available with common
4065 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
4066 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
4067 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
4068 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
4069 after less then a week.</p>
4070
4071 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
4072 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
4073 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
4074
4075 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4076 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4077 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4078
4079       </div>
4080       <div class="tags">
4081
4082
4083         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4084
4085
4086       </div>
4087     </div>
4088     <div class="padding"></div>
4089
4090     <div class="entry">
4091       <div class="title">
4092         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
4093       </div>
4094       <div class="date">
4095         25th November 2016
4096       </div>
4097       <div class="body">
4098         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
4099 installation system, observing how using
4100 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
4101 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
4102 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
4103 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
4104 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
4105 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
4106 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
4107 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
4108 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
4109 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
4110 up the process make perfect sense.
4111
4112 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
4113 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
4114 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
4115 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
4116 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
4117 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
4118 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
4119 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
4120 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
4121 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
4122
4123 <blockquote><pre>
4124 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
4125 </pre></blockquote>
4126
4127 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
4128 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
4129 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
4130 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
4131 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
4132 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
4133 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
4134 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
4135 tested its impact.</p>
4136
4137
4138       </div>
4139       <div class="tags">
4140
4141
4142         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4143
4144
4145       </div>
4146     </div>
4147     <div class="padding"></div>
4148
4149     <div class="entry">
4150       <div class="title">
4151         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
4152       </div>
4153       <div class="date">
4154         24th November 2016
4155       </div>
4156       <div class="body">
4157         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
4158 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
4159 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
4160 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
4161 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
4162 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
4163 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
4164 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
4165 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
4166 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
4167 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
4168 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
4169 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
4170 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
4171 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
4172 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
4173 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
4174 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
4175 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
4176
4177 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
4178 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
4179 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
4180 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
4181 api.apertium.org.  Se
4182 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
4183 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
4184 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
4185 nynorsk.</p>
4186
4187 <hr/>
4188
4189 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
4190 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
4191 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
4192 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
4193 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
4194 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
4195 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
4196 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
4197 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
4198 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
4199 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
4200 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
4201 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
4202 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
4203 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
4204 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
4205 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
4206 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
4207 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
4208
4209 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
4210 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
4211 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
4212 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
4213 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
4214 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
4215 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
4216 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
4217 nynorsk.</p>
4218
4219       </div>
4220       <div class="tags">
4221
4222
4223         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
4224
4225
4226       </div>
4227     </div>
4228     <div class="padding"></div>
4229
4230     <div class="entry">
4231       <div class="title">
4232         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
4233       </div>
4234       <div class="date">
4235         13th November 2016
4236       </div>
4237       <div class="body">
4238         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
4239 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
4240 multi-threaded program, finally
4241 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
4242 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
4243 months since
4244 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
4245 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
4246 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
4247 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
4248 JavaScript libraries.</p>
4249
4250 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
4251
4252 <p><blockquote>
4253 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
4254 </blockquote></p>
4255
4256 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
4257 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
4258 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
4259 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
4260 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
4261
4262 <p><blockquote>
4263 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
4264 </blockquote></p>
4265
4266 <p>See the project home page and the
4267 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
4268 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
4269 working.</p>
4270
4271       </div>
4272       <div class="tags">
4273
4274
4275         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4276
4277
4278       </div>
4279     </div>
4280     <div class="padding"></div>
4281
4282     <div class="entry">
4283       <div class="title">
4284         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
4285       </div>
4286       <div class="date">
4287          4th November 2016
4288       </div>
4289       <div class="body">
4290         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
4291 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
4292 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
4293 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
4294 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
4295 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
4296 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
4297 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
4298 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
4299 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
4300 and had
4301 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
4302 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
4303 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
4304 loved ones. :)</p>
4305
4306 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
4307 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
4308 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
4309 building
4310 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
4311 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
4312 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
4313 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
4314 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
4315 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
4316 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
4317 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
4318
4319 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
4320
4321 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
4322 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
4323 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
4324 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
4325 the battery status run low:</p>
4326
4327 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
4328    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
4329 </video></p>
4330
4331 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
4332 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
4333
4334 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
4335 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
4336 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
4337 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
4338 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
4339 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
4340 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
4341 should.</p>
4342
4343       </div>
4344       <div class="tags">
4345
4346
4347         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4348
4349
4350       </div>
4351     </div>
4352     <div class="padding"></div>
4353
4354     <div class="entry">
4355       <div class="title">
4356         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
4357       </div>
4358       <div class="date">
4359         10th October 2016
4360       </div>
4361       <div class="body">
4362         <p>In July
4363 <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
4364 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
4365 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
4366 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
4367
4368 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
4369 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
4370 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
4371 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
4372 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
4373 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
4374 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
4375 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
4376 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
4377 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
4378 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
4379 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
4380 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
4381 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
4382 time.</p>
4383
4384 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
4385 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
4386 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
4387 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
4388 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
4389 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
4390 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
4391
4392 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
4393 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
4394 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
4395 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
4396 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
4397 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
4398 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
4399 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
4400 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
4401 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
4402
4403 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
4404
4405 <ol>
4406
4407 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
4408 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
4409 know, so you need to install it.
4410
4411 <pre>
4412 apt install git tor chromium
4413 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4414 </pre></li>
4415
4416 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
4417 block below.</li>
4418
4419 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
4420 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
4421
4422 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
4423 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
4424 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
4425 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
4426 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
4427
4428 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
4429 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
4430 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
4431 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
4432 a associated contact database.</li>
4433
4434 </ol>
4435
4436 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
4437 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
4438 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
4439 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
4440 example
4441 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
4442 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
4443 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
4444 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
4445 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
4446 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
4447 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
4448 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
4449 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
4450 working on Debian Stable.</p>
4451
4452 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
4453 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
4454 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
4455
4456 <pre>
4457 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
4458 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
4459 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
4460 --- a/js/background.js
4461 +++ b/js/background.js
4462 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
4463          });
4464      });
4465
4466 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4467 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
4468      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
4469 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4470 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4471      var messageReceiver;
4472      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4473          if (messageReceiver) {
4474 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
4475 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
4476 --- a/js/expire.js
4477 +++ b/js/expire.js
4478 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4479  ;(function() {
4480      'use strict';
4481 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4482 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
4483
4484      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4485
4486 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
4487 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
4488 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
4489 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
4490 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
4491              return {
4492                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
4493                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
4494 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
4495 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
4496 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
4497              };
4498          },
4499          clearQR: function() {
4500 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
4501 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
4502 --- a/options.html
4503 +++ b/options.html
4504 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
4505          &lt;div class='nav'>
4506            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
4507            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
4508 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
4509 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
4510 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
4511 +
4512 +         &lt;/div>
4513            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
4514            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
4515            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
4516 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
4517 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
4518 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
4519 +#!/bin/sh
4520 +set -e
4521 +cd $(dirname $0)
4522 +mkdir -p userdata
4523 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
4524 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
4525 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
4526 +fi
4527 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
4528 +exec chromium \
4529 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4530 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4531 EOF
4532 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
4533 </pre>
4534
4535 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4536 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4537 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4538
4539       </div>
4540       <div class="tags">
4541
4542
4543         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4544
4545
4546       </div>
4547     </div>
4548     <div class="padding"></div>
4549
4550     <div class="entry">
4551       <div class="title">
4552         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
4553       </div>
4554       <div class="date">
4555          7th October 2016
4556       </div>
4557       <div class="body">
4558         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
4559 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
4560 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
4561 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
4562 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
4563 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
4564 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
4565 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
4566 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
4567 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
4568 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
4569 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
4570 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
4571
4572 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
4573 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
4574 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
4575 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
4576 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
4577 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
4578
4579 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
4580 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
4581 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
4582 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
4583 identifiers.</p>
4584
4585 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
4586 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
4587 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
4588 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
4589 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
4590 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
4591 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
4592 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
4593 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
4594 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
4595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
4596 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
4597 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
4598 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
4599
4600 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
4601 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
4602 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
4603 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
4604 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
4605 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
4606 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
4607
4608 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
4609 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
4610 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
4611 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
4612 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
4613 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
4614 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
4615 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
4616 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
4617 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
4618 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
4619 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
4620 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
4621 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
4622 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
4623 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
4624 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
4625
4626 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
4627 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
4628 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
4629 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
4630 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
4631 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
4632 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
4633
4634 <p><pre>
4635 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
4636     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
4637 </pre></p>
4638
4639 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
4640 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
4641 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
4642 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
4643 to detect this?</p>
4644
4645 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
4646 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
4647 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
4648 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
4649 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
4650 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
4651 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
4652 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
4653 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
4654 directly if no such class exist.</p>
4655
4656 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
4657 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
4658 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
4659
4660 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
4661 please join us on our IRC channel
4662 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
4663 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
4664 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
4665 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
4666
4667 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4668 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4669 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4670
4671       </div>
4672       <div class="tags">
4673
4674
4675         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>.
4676
4677
4678       </div>
4679     </div>
4680     <div class="padding"></div>
4681
4682     <div class="entry">
4683       <div class="title">
4684         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
4685       </div>
4686       <div class="date">
4687         30th August 2016
4688       </div>
4689       <div class="body">
4690         <p>In April we
4691 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
4692 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
4693 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
4694 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
4695 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
4696 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
4697 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
4698 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
4699 contributing using
4700 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
4701 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
4702 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
4703 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
4704 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
4705 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
4706 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
4707
4708 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
4709 electronic form.</p>
4710
4711       </div>
4712       <div class="tags">
4713
4714
4715         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4716
4717
4718       </div>
4719     </div>
4720     <div class="padding"></div>
4721
4722     <div class="entry">
4723       <div class="title">
4724         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
4725       </div>
4726       <div class="date">
4727         11th August 2016
4728       </div>
4729       <div class="body">
4730         <p>This summer, I read a great article
4731 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
4732 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
4733 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
4734 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
4735 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
4736 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
4737 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
4738 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
4739 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
4740 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
4741 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
4742 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
4743
4744 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
4745 get the system into Debian.  I
4746 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
4747 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
4748 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
4749 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
4750 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
4751 profiling information included in the source package.
4752 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
4753
4754 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
4755 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
4756
4757 <p><blockquote><pre>
4758 coz run --- program-to-run
4759 </pre></blockquote></p>
4760
4761 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
4762 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
4763 most, use a web browser and either point it to
4764 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
4765 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
4766 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
4767 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
4768 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
4769 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
4770 targeted experiments.</p>
4771
4772 <p>A video published by ACM
4773 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
4774 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
4775 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
4776 titled
4777 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
4778 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
4779
4780 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
4781 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
4782 because it uses a
4783 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
4784 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
4785 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
4786 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
4787
4788 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
4789 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
4790 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
4791 C++ libraries.</p>
4792
4793       </div>
4794       <div class="tags">
4795
4796
4797         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4798
4799
4800       </div>
4801     </div>
4802     <div class="padding"></div>
4803
4804     <div class="entry">
4805       <div class="title">
4806         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
4807       </div>
4808       <div class="date">
4809          7th July 2016
4810       </div>
4811       <div class="body">
4812         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
4813 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
4814 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
4815 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
4816 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
4817 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
4818 microphone The initial idea had been to just
4819 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
4820 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
4821 until a few days ago.</p>
4822
4823 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
4824 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
4825 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
4826 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
4827 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
4828 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
4829 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
4830
4831 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
4832 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
4833 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
4834 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
4835 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
4836 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
4837 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
4838 him.</p>
4839
4840 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
4841 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
4842 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
4843 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
4844 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
4845 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
4846 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
4847 devices it would work for.</p>
4848
4849 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
4850 followed some instructions
4851 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
4852 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
4853 machine with Debian testing:</p>
4854
4855 <p><pre>
4856 adb reboot-bootloader
4857 fastboot oem rebootRUU
4858 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4859 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4860 fastboot reboot
4861 </pre></p>
4862
4863 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
4864 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
4865 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
4866 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
4867 too.</p>
4868
4869 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
4870 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
4871 like this:</p>
4872
4873 <p><pre>
4874 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
4875 </pre>
4876
4877 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
4878 this:</p>
4879
4880 <p><pre>
4881 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
4882 </pre></p>
4883
4884 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
4885 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
4886 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
4887 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
4888 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
4889
4890       </div>
4891       <div class="tags">
4892
4893
4894         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4895
4896
4897       </div>
4898     </div>
4899     <div class="padding"></div>
4900
4901     <div class="entry">
4902       <div class="title">
4903         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
4904       </div>
4905       <div class="date">
4906          3rd July 2016
4907       </div>
4908       <div class="body">
4909         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
4910 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
4911 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
4912 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
4913 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
4914 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
4915 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
4916 Github source, compared it to the source in
4917 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
4918 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
4919 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
4920 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
4921 the recipe how I did it.</p>
4922
4923 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
4924
4925 <pre>
4926 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4927 </pre>
4928
4929 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
4930 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
4931
4932 <pre>
4933 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
4934 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
4935 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4936 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4937 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
4938          });
4939      });
4940
4941 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4942 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4943 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
4944 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4945      var messageReceiver;
4946      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4947          if (messageReceiver) {
4948 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
4949 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4950 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4951 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4952  ;(function() {
4953      'use strict';
4954 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4955 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
4956
4957      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4958
4959 EOF
4960 </pre>
4961
4962 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
4963 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
4964 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
4965 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
4966
4967 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
4968 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
4969
4970 <pre>
4971 #!/bin/sh
4972 cd $(dirname $0)
4973 mkdir -p userdata
4974 exec chromium \
4975   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4976   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4977 </pre>
4978
4979 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
4980 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
4981 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
4982 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
4983 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
4984
4985 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
4986 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
4987 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
4988 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
4989 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
4990 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
4991 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
4992 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
4993 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
4994 Signal from my laptop.
4995
4996 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
4997 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
4998 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
4999 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
5000 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
5001 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
5002 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
5003 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
5004 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
5005 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
5006 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
5007 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
5008
5009 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
5010 on this topic in
5011 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
5012 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
5013 phone</a>.</p>
5014
5015       </div>
5016       <div class="tags">
5017
5018
5019         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5020
5021
5022       </div>
5023     </div>
5024     <div class="padding"></div>
5025
5026     <div class="entry">
5027       <div class="title">
5028         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
5029       </div>
5030       <div class="date">
5031          6th June 2016
5032       </div>
5033       <div class="body">
5034         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
5035 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
5036 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
5037 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
5038 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
5039 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
5040 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
5041 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
5042 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
5043
5044 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
5045 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
5046 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
5047 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
5048 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
5049 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
5050 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
5051
5052 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
5053 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
5054 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
5055 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
5056 toten and parole.</p>
5057
5058 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
5059 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
5060 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
5061 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
5062 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
5063 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
5064 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
5065 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
5066 formats.</p>
5067
5068       </div>
5069       <div class="tags">
5070
5071
5072         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5073
5074
5075       </div>
5076     </div>
5077     <div class="padding"></div>
5078
5079     <div class="entry">
5080       <div class="title">
5081         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
5082       </div>
5083       <div class="date">
5084          5th June 2016
5085       </div>
5086       <div class="body">
5087         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
5088 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
5089 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
5090 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
5091 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
5092 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
5093 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
5094 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
5095 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
5096 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
5097 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
5098 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
5099 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
5100 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
5101 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
5102 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
5103 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
5104 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
5105 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
5106 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
5107
5108 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
5109 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
5110 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
5111 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
5112 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
5113 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
5114 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
5115 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
5116 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
5117 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
5118 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
5119 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
5120 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
5121 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
5122
5123 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
5124 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
5125 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
5126 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
5127 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
5128 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
5129 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
5130 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
5131
5132 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
5133 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
5134 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
5135 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
5136 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
5137 information is collected from
5138 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
5139 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
5140 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
5141 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
5142 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
5143 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
5144 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
5145 type (preferably
5146 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
5147 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
5148 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
5149 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
5150
5151 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
5152 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
5153 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
5154
5155 <p><blockquote><pre>
5156 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
5157 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
5158   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
5159     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
5160     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
5161     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
5162   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
5163 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
5164 </pre></blockquote></p>
5165
5166 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
5167 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
5168 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
5169 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
5170
5171 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
5172 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
5173 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
5174
5175 <p><blockquote><pre>
5176 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
5177 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
5178 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
5179 %
5180 </pre></blockquote></p>
5181
5182 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
5183 MimeType= line.</p>
5184
5185 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
5186 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
5187 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
5188 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
5189 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
5190 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
5191 fixed. :)</p>
5192
5193       </div>
5194       <div class="tags">
5195
5196
5197         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5198
5199
5200       </div>
5201     </div>
5202     <div class="padding"></div>
5203
5204     <div class="entry">
5205       <div class="title">
5206         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
5207       </div>
5208       <div class="date">
5209         25th May 2016
5210       </div>
5211       <div class="body">
5212         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
5213 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
5214 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
5215 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
5216 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
5217 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
5218 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
5219 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
5220 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
5221 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
5222 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
5223 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
5224
5225 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
5226 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
5227 is going away and is generally being replaced by
5228 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
5229 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
5230 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
5231 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
5232 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
5233 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
5234 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
5235 and see if it is recognised.</p>
5236
5237 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
5238 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
5239 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
5240
5241 <p><blockquote><pre>
5242 % isenkram-lookup
5243 bluez
5244 cheese
5245 fprintd
5246 fprintd-demo
5247 gkrellm-thinkbat
5248 hdapsd
5249 libpam-fprintd
5250 pidgin-blinklight
5251 thinkfan
5252 tleds
5253 tp-smapi-dkms
5254 tp-smapi-source
5255 tpb
5256 %p
5257 </pre></blockquote></p>
5258
5259 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
5260 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
5261 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
5262 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
5263 See
5264 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
5265 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
5266
5267       </div>
5268       <div class="tags">
5269
5270
5271         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5272
5273
5274       </div>
5275     </div>
5276     <div class="padding"></div>
5277
5278     <div class="entry">
5279       <div class="title">
5280         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
5281       </div>
5282       <div class="date">
5283         23rd May 2016
5284       </div>
5285       <div class="body">
5286         <p>Yesterday I updated the
5287 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
5288 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
5289 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
5290 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
5291 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
5292 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
5293 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
5294 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
5295 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
5296 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
5297
5298 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
5299 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
5300 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
5301 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
5302 capacity.</p>
5303
5304 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
5305
5306 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
5307 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
5308 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
5309 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
5310
5311 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
5312
5313 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
5314 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
5315 shrinking. :(</p>
5316
5317 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
5318 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
5319 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
5320 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
5321 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
5322 machine.</p>
5323
5324 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5325 check out the
5326 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5327 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5328 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
5329 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5330 Patches are very welcome.</p>
5331
5332 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5333 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5334 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5335
5336       </div>
5337       <div class="tags">
5338
5339
5340         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5341
5342
5343       </div>
5344     </div>
5345     <div class="padding"></div>
5346
5347     <div class="entry">
5348       <div class="title">
5349         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
5350       </div>
5351       <div class="date">
5352         12th May 2016
5353       </div>
5354       <div class="body">
5355         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
5356 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
5357 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
5358 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
5359 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
5360 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5361 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
5362 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
5363 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
5364 great if you could help out with
5365 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
5366 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
5367
5368       </div>
5369       <div class="tags">
5370
5371
5372         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5373
5374
5375       </div>
5376     </div>
5377     <div class="padding"></div>
5378
5379     <div class="entry">
5380       <div class="title">
5381         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
5382       </div>
5383       <div class="date">
5384          8th May 2016
5385       </div>
5386       <div class="body">
5387         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
5388 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
5389
5390 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
5391 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
5392 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
5393 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
5394 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
5395 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
5396 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
5397 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
5398 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
5399 players.</p>
5400
5401 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
5402 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
5403 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
5404 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
5405 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
5406 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
5407 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
5408 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
5409 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
5410 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
5411 support most file formats.</p>
5412
5413 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
5414 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
5415 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
5416 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
5417 listed first in the table.</p>
5418
5419 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
5420 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
5421 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
5422 support?</p>
5423
5424       </div>
5425       <div class="tags">
5426
5427
5428         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5429
5430
5431       </div>
5432     </div>
5433     <div class="padding"></div>
5434
5435     <div class="entry">
5436       <div class="title">
5437         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
5438       </div>
5439       <div class="date">
5440          4th May 2016
5441       </div>
5442       <div class="body">
5443         A friend of mine made me aware of
5444 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
5445 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
5446 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
5447
5448 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
5449 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
5450 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
5451 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
5452 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
5453 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
5454 production started.</p>
5455
5456 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
5457 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
5458 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
5459
5460       </div>
5461       <div class="tags">
5462
5463
5464         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5465
5466
5467       </div>
5468     </div>
5469     <div class="padding"></div>
5470
5471     <div class="entry">
5472       <div class="title">
5473         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
5474       </div>
5475       <div class="date">
5476         10th April 2016
5477       </div>
5478       <div class="body">
5479         <p>During this weekends
5480 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
5481 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
5482 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
5483 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
5484 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
5485 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
5486 contributing using
5487 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
5488 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
5489 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
5490 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
5491 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
5492 contributors</a>.</p>
5493
5494 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
5495 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
5496 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
5497 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
5498 available for many more languages.</p>
5499
5500       </div>
5501       <div class="tags">
5502
5503
5504         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5505
5506
5507       </div>
5508     </div>
5509     <div class="padding"></div>
5510
5511     <div class="entry">
5512       <div class="title">
5513         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
5514       </div>
5515       <div class="date">
5516          7th April 2016
5517       </div>
5518       <div class="body">
5519         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
5520 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
5521 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
5522 But I might be wrong.</p>
5523
5524 <p>According to
5525 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
5526 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
5527 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
5528 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
5529 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
5530 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
5531 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
5532 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
5533 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
5534 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
5535
5536 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
5537 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
5538 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
5539 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
5540 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
5541 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
5542 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
5543 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5544 team status page</a>, and
5545 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
5546 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
5547
5548 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
5549 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
5550 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
5551 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
5552 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
5553 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
5554 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
5555 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
5556 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
5557 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
5558 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
5559 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
5560
5561       </div>
5562       <div class="tags">
5563
5564
5565         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5566
5567
5568       </div>
5569     </div>
5570     <div class="padding"></div>
5571
5572     <div class="entry">
5573       <div class="title">
5574         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
5575       </div>
5576       <div class="date">
5577         23rd March 2016
5578       </div>
5579       <div class="body">
5580         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
5581 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
5582 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
5583 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
5584 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
5585 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
5586 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
5587 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
5588
5589 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
5590 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
5591 and lifetime prediction by running:
5592
5593 <p><pre>
5594 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
5595 </pre></p>
5596
5597 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
5598
5599 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
5600 entry yet):</p>
5601
5602 <p><pre>
5603 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
5604 </pre></p>
5605
5606 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
5607 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
5608 few years of data.</p>
5609
5610 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
5611 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
5612 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
5613 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
5614 know.  The issue is reported as
5615 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
5616 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
5617 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
5618 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
5619 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
5620
5621 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5622 check out the
5623 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5624 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5625 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
5626 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5627 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
5628
5629       </div>
5630       <div class="tags">
5631
5632
5633         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5634
5635
5636       </div>
5637     </div>
5638     <div class="padding"></div>
5639
5640     <div class="entry">
5641       <div class="title">
5642         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
5643       </div>
5644       <div class="date">
5645         15th March 2016
5646       </div>
5647       <div class="body">
5648         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
5649 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
5650 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
5651 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
5652 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
5653 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
5654 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
5655 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
5656 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
5657 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
5658 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
5659
5660 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
5661 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
5662 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
5663 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
5664 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
5665 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
5666 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
5667 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
5668 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
5669 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
5670 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
5671
5672 <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>
5673
5674 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
5675 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
5676 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
5677 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
5678 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
5679 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
5680
5681 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
5682 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
5683 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
5684 and graphing.</p>
5685
5686 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
5687 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
5688 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
5689 on
5690 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5691 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
5692
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="tags">
5695
5696
5697         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5698
5699
5700       </div>
5701     </div>
5702     <div class="padding"></div>
5703
5704     <div class="entry">
5705       <div class="title">
5706         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
5707       </div>
5708       <div class="date">
5709         19th February 2016
5710       </div>
5711       <div class="body">
5712         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
5713 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
5714 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
5715 the code in the package in question, preferably in
5716 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
5717 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
5718
5719 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
5720 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
5721 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
5722 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
5723 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
5724 out what was wrong with
5725 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
5726 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
5727 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
5728 semi-automatically.</p>
5729
5730 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
5731 file based on the code in the source package,
5732 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
5733 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
5734 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
5735 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
5736 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
5737 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
5738 option in
5739 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
5740 blog posts from 2014</a>.
5741
5742 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
5743
5744 <p><pre>
5745 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
5746 </pre></p>
5747
5748 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
5749 this might not be the best option.</p>
5750
5751 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
5752 this approach in
5753 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
5754 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
5755 dpkg-copyright' option:
5756
5757 <p><pre>
5758 cme update dpkg-copyright
5759 </pre></p>
5760
5761 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
5762 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
5763
5764 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
5765 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
5766 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
5767 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
5768 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
5769 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
5770 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
5771 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
5772 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
5773 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
5774
5775 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
5776 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
5777 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
5778 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
5779
5780 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
5781 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
5782 planet.debian.org.</p>
5783
5784 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5785 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5786 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5787
5788 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
5789 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
5790
5791 <p><pre>
5792 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
5793   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
5794 </pre></p>
5795
5796 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
5797 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
5798 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
5799 with my packages in the future.</p>
5800
5801 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
5802 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
5803 command line.</p>
5804
5805       </div>
5806       <div class="tags">
5807
5808
5809         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5810
5811
5812       </div>
5813     </div>
5814     <div class="padding"></div>
5815
5816     <div class="entry">
5817       <div class="title">
5818         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
5819       </div>
5820       <div class="date">
5821          4th February 2016
5822       </div>
5823       <div class="body">
5824         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
5825 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
5826 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
5827 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
5828 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
5829 about. :)</p>
5830
5831 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
5832 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
5833 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
5834 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
5835 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
5836 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
5837
5838 <blockquote><pre>
5839 % apt install appstream
5840 [...]
5841 % apt update
5842 [...]
5843 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
5844   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5845 firmware-qlogic
5846 %
5847 </pre></blockquote>
5848
5849 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
5850 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
5851 a way appstream can use.</p>
5852
5853 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
5854 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
5855 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
5856 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
5857 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
5858 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
5859
5860 <blockquote><pre>
5861 % apt install appstream
5862 [...]
5863 % apt update
5864 [...]
5865 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
5866   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5867 bkchem
5868 phototonic
5869 inkscape
5870 shutter
5871 tetzle
5872 geeqie
5873 xia
5874 pinta
5875 gthumb
5876 karbon
5877 comix
5878 mirage
5879 viewnior
5880 postr
5881 ristretto
5882 kolourpaint4
5883 eog
5884 eom
5885 gimagereader
5886 midori
5887 %
5888 </pre></blockquote>
5889
5890 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
5891 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
5892
5893       </div>
5894       <div class="tags">
5895
5896
5897         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5898
5899
5900       </div>
5901     </div>
5902     <div class="padding"></div>
5903
5904     <div class="entry">
5905       <div class="title">
5906         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
5907       </div>
5908       <div class="date">
5909         24th January 2016
5910       </div>
5911       <div class="body">
5912         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
5913 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
5914 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
5915 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
5916 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
5917 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
5918 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
5919 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
5920 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
5921 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
5922 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
5923 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
5924 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
5925 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
5926 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
5927 entities.</p>
5928
5929 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
5930
5931 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
5932 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
5933 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
5934 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
5935 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
5936 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
5937 tool to do so is called
5938 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
5939 discovered it when I read
5940 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
5941 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
5942 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
5943 The python program was in Debian, but
5944 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
5945 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
5946 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
5947 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
5948 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
5949 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
5950 are now included
5951 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
5952
5953 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
5954 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
5955 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
5956 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
5957 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
5958 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
5959 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
5960 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
5961 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
5962 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
5963 about yourself with the services.</p>
5964
5965 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
5966 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
5967 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
5968 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
5969 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
5970 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
5971 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
5972 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
5973 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
5974 things.  A similar technique have been
5975 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
5976 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
5977 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
5978 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
5979 public.</p>
5980
5981 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
5982 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
5983 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
5984 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
5985
5986 <p>(I have uploaded
5987 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
5988 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
5989 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
5990
5991       </div>
5992       <div class="tags">
5993
5994
5995         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
5996
5997
5998       </div>
5999     </div>
6000     <div class="padding"></div>
6001
6002     <div class="entry">
6003       <div class="title">
6004         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
6005       </div>
6006       <div class="date">
6007         15th January 2016
6008       </div>
6009       <div class="body">
6010         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
6011 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
6012 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
6013 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
6014 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
6015 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
6016 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
6017 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
6018 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
6019 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
6020 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
6021 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
6022 was not the first to propose this, as the
6023 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
6024 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
6025 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
6026 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
6027
6028 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
6029 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
6030 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
6031 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
6032 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
6033
6034 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
6035 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
6036 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
6037 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
6038 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
6039 done in /etc/.</p>
6040
6041 <blockquote><pre>
6042 apt install apt-transport-tor
6043 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
6044 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
6045 </pre></blockquote>
6046
6047 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
6048 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
6049 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
6050 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
6051
6052 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
6053 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
6054 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
6055 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
6056 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
6057 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
6058
6059 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
6060 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
6061 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
6062 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
6063 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
6064
6065 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
6066 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
6067 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
6068 system.</p>
6069
6070       </div>
6071       <div class="tags">
6072
6073
6074         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6075
6076
6077       </div>
6078     </div>
6079     <div class="padding"></div>
6080
6081     <div class="entry">
6082       <div class="title">
6083         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
6084       </div>
6085       <div class="date">
6086         23rd December 2015
6087       </div>
6088       <div class="body">
6089         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
6090 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
6091 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
6092 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
6093 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
6094 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
6095
6096 <p>A few days I came across
6097 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
6098 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
6099 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
6100 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
6101 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
6102 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
6103 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
6104 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
6105 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
6106 discovered the developer
6107 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
6108 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
6109 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
6110 archive.</p>
6111
6112 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
6113 it into Debian, where it currently
6114 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
6115 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
6116
6117 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
6118 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
6119 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
6120 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
6121 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
6122 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
6123 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
6124 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
6125 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
6126 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
6127 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
6128 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
6129
6130 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
6131 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
6132 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
6133 package show up in unstable.</p>
6134
6135       </div>
6136       <div class="tags">
6137
6138
6139         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6140
6141
6142       </div>
6143     </div>
6144     <div class="padding"></div>
6145
6146     <div class="entry">
6147       <div class="title">
6148         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
6149       </div>
6150       <div class="date">
6151         20th December 2015
6152       </div>
6153       <div class="body">
6154         <p>Around three years ago, I created
6155 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
6156 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
6157 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
6158 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
6159 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
6160 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
6161 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
6162 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
6163 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
6164 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
6165 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
6166 with.</p>
6167
6168 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
6169 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
6170 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
6171 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
6172 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
6173 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
6174 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
6175 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
6176 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
6177 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
6178 Debian version of appstream.</p>
6179
6180 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
6181 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
6182 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
6183 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
6184 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
6185 how do add the required
6186 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
6187 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
6188 this content:</p>
6189
6190 <blockquote><pre>
6191 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
6192 &lt;component&gt;
6193   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
6194   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
6195   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
6196   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
6197   &lt;description&gt;
6198     &lt;p&gt;
6199       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
6200       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
6201       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
6202       launcher.
6203     &lt;/p&gt;
6204   &lt;/description&gt;
6205   &lt;provides&gt;
6206     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
6207   &lt;/provides&gt;
6208 &lt;/component&gt;
6209 </pre></blockquote>
6210
6211 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
6212 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
6213 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
6214 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
6215 0202.</p>
6216
6217 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
6218 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
6219 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
6220 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
6221 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
6222 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
6223 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
6224 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
6225
6226 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
6227 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
6228 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
6229 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
6230 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
6231
6232 <blockquote><pre>
6233 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
6234 </pre></blockquote>
6235
6236 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
6237 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
6238 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
6239 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
6240 question.</p>
6241
6242 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
6243 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
6244
6245 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
6246 try running this command on the command line:</p>
6247
6248 <blockquote><pre>
6249 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
6250 </pre></blockquote>
6251
6252 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
6253 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
6254 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
6255
6256       </div>
6257       <div class="tags">
6258
6259
6260         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6261
6262
6263       </div>
6264     </div>
6265     <div class="padding"></div>
6266
6267     <div class="entry">
6268       <div class="title">
6269         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
6270       </div>
6271       <div class="date">
6272         30th November 2015
6273       </div>
6274       <div class="body">
6275         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
6276 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
6277 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
6278 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
6279 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
6280
6281 <blockquote>
6282
6283 <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>
6284
6285 <blockquote>
6286 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
6287
6288 The first step is to choose a
6289 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
6290 code.<br/>
6291
6292 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
6293 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
6294
6295 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
6296 work<br/>
6297
6298 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
6299 </blockquote>
6300
6301 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
6302 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
6303 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
6304 0x57</a></small></p>
6305
6306 <p>As the Debian Website
6307 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
6308 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
6309 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
6310 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
6311 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
6312 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
6313 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
6314 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
6315 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
6316 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
6317 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
6318 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
6319 Freedom">FaiF</a>
6320 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
6321 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
6322 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
6323 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
6324 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
6325 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
6326 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
6327 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
6328 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
6329 In March the SFC supported a
6330 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
6331 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
6332 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
6333 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
6334 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
6335 conferences
6336 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
6337 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
6338 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
6339 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
6340 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
6341 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
6342 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
6343 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
6344 Software.</p>
6345
6346 <p>If you support Free Software,
6347 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
6348 what the SFC do, agree with their
6349 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
6350 principles</a>, are happy about their
6351 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
6352 work on a project that is an SFC
6353 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
6354 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
6355 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
6356 Allan Webber</a>,
6357 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
6358 Smith</a>,
6359 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
6360 Bacon</a>, myself and
6361 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
6362 becoming a
6363 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
6364 next week your donation will be
6365 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
6366 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
6367 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
6368 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
6369 social media accounts.</p>
6370
6371 </blockquote>
6372
6373 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
6374 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
6375 supporter too?</p>
6376
6377       </div>
6378       <div class="tags">
6379
6380
6381         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
6382
6383
6384       </div>
6385     </div>
6386     <div class="padding"></div>
6387
6388     <div class="entry">
6389       <div class="title">
6390         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
6391       </div>
6392       <div class="date">
6393         17th November 2015
6394       </div>
6395       <div class="body">
6396         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
6397 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
6398 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
6399 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
6400 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
6401 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
6402 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
6403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
6404 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
6405 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
6406
6407 <pre>
6408 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
6409       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
6410 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
6411 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
6412 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6413 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6414 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6415 </pre>
6416
6417 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
6418 my old key.</p>
6419
6420 <p>If you signed my old key
6421 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
6422 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
6423 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
6424 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
6425
6426       </div>
6427       <div class="tags">
6428
6429
6430         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6431
6432
6433       </div>
6434     </div>
6435     <div class="padding"></div>
6436
6437     <div class="entry">
6438       <div class="title">
6439         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
6440       </div>
6441       <div class="date">
6442         24th September 2015
6443       </div>
6444       <div class="body">
6445         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
6446 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
6447 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
6448 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
6449 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
6450 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
6451 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
6452
6453 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
6454
6455 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
6456 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
6457 by someone else.  I found
6458 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
6459 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
6460 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
6461 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
6462 from him.  Via
6463 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
6464 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
6465 discovered
6466 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
6467 available in Debian.</p>
6468
6469 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
6470 battery stats ever since. Now my
6471 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
6472 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
6473 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
6474 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
6475
6476 <pre>
6477 #!/bin/sh
6478 # Inspired by
6479 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
6480 # See also
6481 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
6482 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
6483
6484 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
6485     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
6486
6487 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
6488     (
6489         printf "timestamp,"
6490         for f in $files; do
6491             printf "%s," $f
6492         done
6493         echo
6494     ) > "$logfile"
6495 fi
6496
6497 log_battery() {
6498     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
6499     # when several log processes run in parallel.
6500     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
6501         for f in $files; do \
6502             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
6503         done)
6504     echo "$msg"
6505 }
6506
6507 cd /sys/class/power_supply
6508
6509 for bat in BAT*; do
6510     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
6511 done
6512 </pre>
6513
6514 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
6515 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
6516 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
6517 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
6518 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
6519 The code for the Debian package
6520 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
6521 available on github</a>.</p>
6522
6523 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
6524
6525 <pre>
6526 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
6527 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
6528 [...]
6529 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6530 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6531 </pre>
6532
6533 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
6534 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
6535 battery.</p>
6536
6537 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
6538 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
6539 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
6540 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
6541 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
6542 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
6543 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
6544 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
6545 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
6546 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
6547 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
6548 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
6549 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
6550 Linux too.</p>
6551
6552 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
6553 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
6554 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
6555 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
6556 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
6557 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
6558 load).</p>
6559
6560 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
6561 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
6562 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
6563 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
6564 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
6565 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
6566 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
6567 those.</p>
6568
6569 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
6570 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
6571 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
6572 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
6573 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
6574 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
6575 specific.</p>
6576
6577       </div>
6578       <div class="tags">
6579
6580
6581         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6582
6583
6584       </div>
6585     </div>
6586     <div class="padding"></div>
6587
6588     <div class="entry">
6589       <div class="title">
6590         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
6591       </div>
6592       <div class="date">
6593          5th July 2015
6594       </div>
6595       <div class="body">
6596         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
6597 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
6598 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
6599 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
6600 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
6601 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
6602 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
6603 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
6604 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
6605 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
6606 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
6607
6608 <p>One tip I got was to use the
6609 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
6610 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
6611 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
6612 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
6613 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
6614 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
6615
6616 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
6617 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
6618 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
6619 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
6620 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
6621 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
6622 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
6623 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
6624 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
6625 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
6626 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
6627 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
6628 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
6629 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
6630 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
6631
6632 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
6633 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
6634 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
6635 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
6636
6637 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
6638 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
6639
6640 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
6641 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
6642 different
6643 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
6644 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
6645
6646       </div>
6647       <div class="tags">
6648
6649
6650         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6651
6652
6653       </div>
6654     </div>
6655     <div class="padding"></div>
6656
6657     <div class="entry">
6658       <div class="title">
6659         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
6660       </div>
6661       <div class="date">
6662          3rd July 2015
6663       </div>
6664       <div class="body">
6665         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
6666 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
6667 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
6668 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
6669 flickering.</p>
6670
6671 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
6672 still as
6673 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
6674 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
6675 good help from
6676 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
6677 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
6678 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
6679 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
6680 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
6681 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
6682 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
6683 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
6684 deteriorated since X41.</p>
6685
6686 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
6687 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
6688 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
6689 have suggestions.</p>
6690
6691 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
6692 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
6693 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
6694
6695       </div>
6696       <div class="tags">
6697
6698
6699         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6700
6701
6702       </div>
6703     </div>
6704     <div class="padding"></div>
6705
6706     <div class="entry">
6707       <div class="title">
6708         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
6709       </div>
6710       <div class="date">
6711         22nd November 2014
6712       </div>
6713       <div class="body">
6714         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
6715 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
6716 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
6717 courtesy of
6718 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
6719 Schubert</a> and
6720 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
6721 McVittie</a>.
6722
6723 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
6724 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
6725 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
6726 you upgrade:</p>
6727
6728 <p><blockquote><pre>
6729 Package: systemd-sysv
6730 Pin: release o=Debian
6731 Pin-Priority: -1
6732 </pre></blockquote><p>
6733
6734 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
6735 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
6736 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
6737 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
6738 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
6739
6740 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
6741 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
6742 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
6743 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
6744 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
6745 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
6746
6747 <p><blockquote><pre>
6748 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
6749 </pre></blockquote><p>
6750
6751 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
6752
6753 <p><blockquote><pre>
6754 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
6755 </pre></blockquote><p>
6756
6757 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
6758 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
6759
6760 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
6761 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
6762 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
6763 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
6764 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
6765 Jessie is released.</p>
6766
6767 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
6768 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
6769 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
6770 line.</p>
6771
6772       </div>
6773       <div class="tags">
6774
6775
6776         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6777
6778
6779       </div>
6780     </div>
6781     <div class="padding"></div>
6782
6783     <div class="entry">
6784       <div class="title">
6785         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
6786       </div>
6787       <div class="date">
6788         10th November 2014
6789       </div>
6790       <div class="body">
6791         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
6792 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
6793 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
6794
6795 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
6796 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
6797 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
6798 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
6799 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
6800 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
6801 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
6802 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
6803 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
6804 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
6805 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
6806 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
6807 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
6808 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
6809 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
6810
6811 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
6812 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
6813 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
6814 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
6815 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
6816 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
6817 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
6818 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
6819 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
6820 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
6821 were fairly easy, and
6822 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
6823 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
6824 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
6825 useful approach.</p>
6826
6827 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
6828 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
6829 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
6830 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
6831 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
6832 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
6833 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
6834 this:</p>
6835
6836 <p><blockquote><pre>
6837 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
6838   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
6839 </pre></blockquote></p>
6840
6841 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
6842 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
6843
6844 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
6845 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
6846 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
6847 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
6848 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
6849 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
6850 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
6851 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
6852 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
6853 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
6854 system.</p>
6855
6856 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
6857 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
6858 SMTorP. :)</p>
6859
6860       </div>
6861       <div class="tags">
6862
6863
6864         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6865
6866
6867       </div>
6868     </div>
6869     <div class="padding"></div>
6870
6871     <div class="entry">
6872       <div class="title">
6873         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
6874       </div>
6875       <div class="date">
6876         22nd October 2014
6877       </div>
6878       <div class="body">
6879         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
6880 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
6881 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
6882 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
6883 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
6884 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
6885 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
6886 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
6887 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
6888 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
6889 lists I recently took over:</p>
6890
6891 <p><blockquote><pre>
6892 % time listadmin xiph
6893 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6894 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6895
6896 real    0m1.709s
6897 user    0m0.232s
6898 sys     0m0.012s
6899 %
6900 </pre></blockquote></p>
6901
6902 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
6903 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
6904 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
6905 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
6906 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
6907 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
6908 program.</p>
6909
6910 <p>If you install
6911 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
6912 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
6913 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
6914
6915 <p><blockquote><pre>
6916 username username@example.org
6917 spamlevel 23
6918 default discard
6919 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
6920
6921 password secret
6922 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
6923 mailman-list@lists.example.com
6924
6925 password hidden
6926 other-list@otherserver.example.org
6927 </pre></blockquote></p>
6928
6929 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
6930 learn the details.</p>
6931
6932 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
6933 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
6934 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
6935 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
6936
6937 <p><blockquote><pre>
6938 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
6939 </pre></blockquote></p>
6940
6941 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
6942 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
6943 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
6944 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
6945 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
6946 email.</p>
6947
6948 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
6949 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
6950 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
6951 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
6952 software.</p>
6953
6954 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6955 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6956 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6957
6958 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
6959 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
6960 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
6961 sure why.</p>
6962
6963       </div>
6964       <div class="tags">
6965
6966
6967         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6968
6969
6970       </div>
6971     </div>
6972     <div class="padding"></div>
6973
6974     <div class="entry">
6975       <div class="title">
6976         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
6977       </div>
6978       <div class="date">
6979         17th October 2014
6980       </div>
6981       <div class="body">
6982         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
6983 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
6984 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
6985 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
6986 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
6987 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
6988 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
6989
6990 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
6991 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
6992 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
6993 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
6994 of this story.)</p>
6995
6996 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
6997 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
6998 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
6999 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
7000 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
7001 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
7002 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
7003 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
7004 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
7005 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
7006
7007 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
7008 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
7009 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
7010 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
7011
7012 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
7013 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
7014
7015 <p><blockquote><pre>
7016 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
7017 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
7018 </pre></blockquote></p>
7019
7020 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
7021 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
7022 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
7023 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
7024 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
7025 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
7026 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
7027 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
7028
7029 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
7030 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
7031
7032 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
7033 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
7034 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
7035 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
7036 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
7037
7038 <p><blockquote><pre>
7039 Task: isenkram-packages
7040 Section: hardware
7041 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7042  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
7043  proposed.
7044 Test-new-install: show show
7045 Relevance: 8
7046 Packages: for-current-hardware
7047
7048 Task: isenkram-firmware
7049 Section: hardware
7050 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7051  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
7052  packages are proposed.
7053 Test-new-install: mark show
7054 Relevance: 8
7055 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
7056 </pre></blockquote></p>
7057
7058 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
7059 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
7060 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
7061 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
7062 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
7063
7064 <p><blockquote><pre>
7065 #!/bin/sh
7066 #
7067 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
7068 export PATH
7069 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7070 </pre></blockquote></p>
7071
7072 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
7073 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
7074
7075 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
7076 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
7077 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
7078 install.</p>
7079
7080 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
7081 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
7082 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
7083
7084       </div>
7085       <div class="tags">
7086
7087
7088         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
7089
7090
7091       </div>
7092     </div>
7093     <div class="padding"></div>
7094
7095     <div class="entry">
7096       <div class="title">
7097         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
7098       </div>
7099       <div class="date">
7100          4th October 2014
7101       </div>
7102       <div class="body">
7103         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
7104 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
7105 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
7106 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
7107
7108 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
7109
7110 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
7111 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
7112 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
7113
7114       </div>
7115       <div class="tags">
7116
7117
7118         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7119
7120
7121       </div>
7122     </div>
7123     <div class="padding"></div>
7124
7125     <div class="entry">
7126       <div class="title">
7127         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
7128       </div>
7129       <div class="date">
7130          4th October 2014
7131       </div>
7132       <div class="body">
7133         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
7134 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
7135 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
7136 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
7137 Dibb.</p>
7138
7139 <p>I just wrapped up
7140 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
7141 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
7142 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
7143 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
7144 0.17.</p>
7145
7146 <ul>
7147
7148  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
7149  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
7150    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
7151  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
7152  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
7153  <li>Fix include orders</li>
7154  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
7155  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
7156  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
7157    the palette size is the same.</li>
7158  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
7159  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
7160  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
7161  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
7162    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
7163
7164 </ul>
7165
7166 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
7167 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
7168 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
7169
7170       </div>
7171       <div class="tags">
7172
7173
7174         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7175
7176
7177       </div>
7178     </div>
7179     <div class="padding"></div>
7180
7181     <div class="entry">
7182       <div class="title">
7183         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
7184       </div>
7185       <div class="date">
7186         26th September 2014
7187       </div>
7188       <div class="body">
7189         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7190 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
7191 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
7192 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
7193 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
7194 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
7195 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
7196 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
7197 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
7198 future.  The
7199 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
7200 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
7201 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
7202 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
7203 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
7204
7205 <p>First, download the test ISO via
7206 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
7207 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
7208 or rsync (use
7209 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
7210 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
7211 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
7212 install with some tweaking.</p>
7213
7214 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
7215 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
7216
7217 <p><blockquote><pre>
7218 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
7219 </pre></blockquote></p>
7220
7221 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
7222 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
7223 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
7224 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
7225
7226 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
7227 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
7228 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
7229 your need.</p>
7230
7231 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
7232 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
7233 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
7234 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
7235 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
7236 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
7237 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
7238 days.</p>
7239
7240 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
7241 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
7242 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
7243 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
7244 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
7245 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
7246 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
7247 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
7248 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
7249
7250 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
7251 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
7252 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
7253
7254       </div>
7255       <div class="tags">
7256
7257
7258         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7259
7260
7261       </div>
7262     </div>
7263     <div class="padding"></div>
7264
7265     <div class="entry">
7266       <div class="title">
7267         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
7268       </div>
7269       <div class="date">
7270         25th September 2014
7271       </div>
7272       <div class="body">
7273         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
7274 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
7275 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
7276 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
7277 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
7278 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
7279 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
7280 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
7281 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
7282 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
7283 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
7284 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
7285 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
7286
7287 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
7288 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
7289 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
7290 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
7291 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
7292 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
7293 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
7294 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
7295 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
7296 list</a>. :)</p>
7297
7298       </div>
7299       <div class="tags">
7300
7301
7302         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7303
7304
7305       </div>
7306     </div>
7307     <div class="padding"></div>
7308
7309     <div class="entry">
7310       <div class="title">
7311         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
7312       </div>
7313       <div class="date">
7314         16th September 2014
7315       </div>
7316       <div class="body">
7317         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
7318 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
7319 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
7320 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
7321 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
7322 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
7323 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
7324 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
7325 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
7326 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
7327 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
7328 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
7329 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
7330 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
7331
7332 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
7333 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
7334 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
7335 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
7336 depend on the small and clever package
7337 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
7338 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
7339 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
7340 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
7341 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
7342 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
7343 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
7344 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
7345 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
7346 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
7347 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
7348
7349 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
7350 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
7351 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
7352 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
7353 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
7354 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
7355 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
7356 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
7357 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
7358 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
7359 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
7360 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
7361 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
7362 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
7363 dialog.</p>
7364
7365 <p><table>
7366
7367 <tr>
7368 <th>Machine/setup</th>
7369 <th>Original tasksel</th>
7370 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
7371 <th>Reduction</th>
7372 </tr>
7373
7374 <tr>
7375 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
7376 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
7377 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
7378 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
7379 </tr>
7380
7381 <tr>
7382 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
7383 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
7384 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
7385 <td>23 min 40%</td>
7386 </tr>
7387
7388 <tr>
7389 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
7390 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
7391 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
7392 <td>11 min 50%</td>
7393 </tr>
7394
7395 <tr>
7396 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
7397 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
7398 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
7399 <td>2 min 33%</td>
7400 </tr>
7401
7402 <tr>
7403 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
7404 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
7405 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
7406 <td>4 min 21%</td>
7407 </tr>
7408
7409 </table></p>
7410
7411 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
7412 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
7413 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
7414 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
7415 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
7416 installed.</p>
7417
7418 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
7419 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
7420 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
7421 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
7422 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
7423 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
7424 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
7425 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
7426 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
7427 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
7428 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
7429 for the entire installation.</p>
7430
7431 <p>I've implemented this in the
7432 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
7433 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
7434 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
7435 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
7436 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
7437
7438 <p><blockquote><pre>
7439 #!/bin/sh
7440 set -e
7441 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7442 info() {
7443     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
7444 }
7445 error() {
7446     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
7447 }
7448 override_install() {
7449     apt-install eatmydata || true
7450     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
7451         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7452             file=/usr/bin/$bin
7453             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
7454             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
7455                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
7456                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
7457                     > /target$file.edu
7458                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
7459                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7460                     --rename --quiet --add $file
7461                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
7462             else
7463                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
7464             fi
7465         done
7466     else
7467         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
7468     fi
7469 }
7470
7471 override_install
7472 </pre></blockquote></p>
7473
7474 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
7475 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
7476
7477 <p><blockquote><pre>
7478 #! /bin/sh -e
7479 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7480 error() {
7481     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
7482 }
7483 remove_install_override() {
7484     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7485         file=/usr/bin/$bin
7486         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
7487             rm /target$file
7488             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7489                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
7490             rm /target$file.edu
7491         else
7492             error "Missing divert for $file."
7493         fi
7494     done
7495     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
7496 }
7497
7498 remove_install_override
7499 </pre></blockquote></p>
7500
7501 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
7502 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
7503 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
7504
7505 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
7506 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
7507 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
7508 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
7509 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
7510 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
7511 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
7512 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
7513 everyone.</p>
7514
7515 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
7516 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
7517 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
7518 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
7519
7520 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
7521 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
7522 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
7523 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
7524 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
7525
7526 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
7527 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
7528 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
7529 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
7530 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
7531
7532       </div>
7533       <div class="tags">
7534
7535
7536         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7537
7538
7539       </div>
7540     </div>
7541     <div class="padding"></div>
7542
7543     <div class="entry">
7544       <div class="title">
7545         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
7546       </div>
7547       <div class="date">
7548         10th September 2014
7549       </div>
7550       <div class="body">
7551         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
7552 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
7553 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
7554 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
7555 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
7556 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
7557 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
7558 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
7559 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
7560 those problems are gone now.</p>
7561
7562 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
7563 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
7564 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
7565 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
7566 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
7567
7568 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
7569 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
7570 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
7571
7572 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
7573 line:</p>
7574
7575 <p><blockquote><pre>
7576 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
7577 </pre></blockquote></p>
7578
7579 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
7580 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
7581 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
7582 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
7583
7584 <p><blockquote><pre>
7585 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
7586 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
7587 %
7588 </pre></blockquote></p>
7589
7590 <p>Now if only
7591 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
7592 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
7593 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
7594 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
7595 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
7596 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
7597 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
7598 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
7599 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
7600
7601       </div>
7602       <div class="tags">
7603
7604
7605         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7606
7607
7608       </div>
7609     </div>
7610     <div class="padding"></div>
7611
7612     <div class="entry">
7613       <div class="title">
7614         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
7615       </div>
7616       <div class="date">
7617         17th June 2014
7618       </div>
7619       <div class="body">
7620         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7621 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
7622 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
7623 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
7624 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
7625
7626 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
7627 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
7628 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
7629 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
7630 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
7631 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
7632 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
7633 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
7634 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
7635 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
7636 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
7637 goals.</p>
7638
7639 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
7640 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
7641 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
7642 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
7643 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
7644 chapters together into one large web page (aka
7645 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
7646 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
7647 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
7648 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
7649 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
7650 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
7651 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
7652 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
7653 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
7654 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
7655 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
7656 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
7657 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
7658 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
7659 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
7660 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
7661 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
7662 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
7663
7664 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
7665 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
7666 track the English original.  For this we use the
7667 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
7668 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
7669 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
7670 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
7671 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
7672 files), which the translations update with the native language
7673 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
7674 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
7675 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
7676 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
7677 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
7678 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
7679 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
7680 of the documentation.</p>
7681
7682 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
7683 recommend using
7684 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
7685 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
7686 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
7687 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
7688 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
7689 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
7690 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
7691 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
7692
7693 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
7694 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
7695 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
7696 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
7697 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
7698 translated images by storing translated versions in
7699 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
7700 package maintainers know more.</p>
7701
7702 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
7703 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
7704 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
7705 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
7706 PDF version</a> or the
7707 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
7708 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
7709 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
7710
7711 <p>To learn more, check out
7712 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
7713 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
7714 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
7715 manual on the wiki</a> and
7716 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
7717 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
7718
7719       </div>
7720       <div class="tags">
7721
7722
7723         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7724
7725
7726       </div>
7727     </div>
7728     <div class="padding"></div>
7729
7730     <div class="entry">
7731       <div class="title">
7732         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
7733       </div>
7734       <div class="date">
7735         23rd April 2014
7736       </div>
7737       <div class="body">
7738         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
7739 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
7740 So I implemented one, using
7741 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
7742 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
7743 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
7744 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
7745 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
7746 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
7747
7748 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
7749 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
7750 packages to install.  The first part is in
7751 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
7752 this:</p>
7753
7754 <p><blockquote><pre>
7755 Task: isenkram
7756 Section: hardware
7757 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7758  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
7759  proposed.
7760 Test-new-install: mark show
7761 Relevance: 8
7762 Packages: for-current-hardware
7763 </pre></blockquote></p>
7764
7765 <p>The second part is in
7766 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
7767 this:</p>
7768
7769 <p><blockquote><pre>
7770 #!/bin/sh
7771 #
7772 (
7773     isenkram-lookup
7774     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7775 ) | sort -u
7776 </pre></blockquote></p>
7777
7778 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
7779 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
7780 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
7781 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
7782 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
7783 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
7784
7785 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
7786 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
7787 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
7788 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
7789 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
7790 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
7791 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
7792 the python-apt code (bug
7793 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
7794 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
7795 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
7796 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
7797 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
7798 unstable today.</p>
7799
7800 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
7801 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
7802 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
7803 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
7804 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
7805 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
7806 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
7807 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
7808 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
7809
7810 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
7811 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
7812 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
7813 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
7814 package.  See also
7815 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
7816 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
7817 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
7818 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
7819
7820       </div>
7821       <div class="tags">
7822
7823
7824         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7825
7826
7827       </div>
7828     </div>
7829     <div class="padding"></div>
7830
7831     <div class="entry">
7832       <div class="title">
7833         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
7834       </div>
7835       <div class="date">
7836         15th April 2014
7837       </div>
7838       <div class="body">
7839         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7840 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
7841 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
7842 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
7843 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
7844 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
7845
7846 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
7847 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
7848 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
7849 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
7850 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
7851 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
7852 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
7853
7854 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
7855 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
7856 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
7857 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
7858 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
7859 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
7860 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
7861 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
7862 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
7863 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
7864 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
7865 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
7866
7867 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
7868 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
7869 become root:</p>
7870
7871 <p><pre>
7872 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7873   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7874   u-boot-tools
7875 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7876   freedom-maker
7877 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7878 </pre></p>
7879
7880 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7881 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
7882 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
7883 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
7884 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
7885 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
7886 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
7887 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
7888
7889 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7890 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7891 the preseed values:</p>
7892
7893 <p><pre>
7894 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7895 </pre></p>
7896
7897 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
7898 it still work.</p>
7899
7900 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
7901 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
7902 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
7903 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
7904 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
7905 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
7906 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
7907
7908 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7909 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7910 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7911 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7912 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7913 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7914
7915       </div>
7916       <div class="tags">
7917
7918
7919         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7920
7921
7922       </div>
7923     </div>
7924     <div class="padding"></div>
7925
7926     <div class="entry">
7927       <div class="title">
7928         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
7929       </div>
7930       <div class="date">
7931          9th April 2014
7932       </div>
7933       <div class="body">
7934         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
7935 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
7936 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
7937 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
7938 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
7939 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
7940 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
7941 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
7942 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
7943 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
7944 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
7945 have looked at a system called
7946 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
7947 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
7948
7949 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
7950 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
7951 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
7952 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
7953 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
7954 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
7955 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
7956 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
7957 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
7958 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
7959 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
7960 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
7961 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
7962
7963 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
7964 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
7965 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
7966 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
7967 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
7968 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
7969 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
7970 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
7971 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
7972 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
7973 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
7974 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
7975 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
7976 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
7977 account.</p>
7978
7979 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
7980 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
7981 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
7982 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
7983 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
7984 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
7985 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
7986
7987 <p><blockquote><pre>
7988 [s3c]
7989 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7990 backend-login: API-login
7991 backend-password: API-password
7992 fs-passphrase: local-password
7993 </pre></blockquote></p>
7994
7995 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
7996 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
7997 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
7998 details and password to create it:</p>
7999
8000 <p><blockquote><pre>
8001 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
8002 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8003   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8004 Enter backend login:
8005 Enter backend password:
8006 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
8007 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
8008 Enter encryption password:
8009 Confirm encryption password:
8010 Generating random encryption key...
8011 Creating metadata tables...
8012 Dumping metadata...
8013 ..objects..
8014 ..blocks..
8015 ..inodes..
8016 ..inode_blocks..
8017 ..symlink_targets..
8018 ..names..
8019 ..contents..
8020 ..ext_attributes..
8021 Compressing and uploading metadata...
8022 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
8023 # </pre></blockquote></p>
8024
8025 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
8026
8027 <p><blockquote><pre>
8028 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8029   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
8030 Using 4 upload threads.
8031 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
8032 Reading metadata...
8033 ..objects..
8034 ..blocks..
8035 ..inodes..
8036 ..inode_blocks..
8037 ..symlink_targets..
8038 ..names..
8039 ..contents..
8040 ..ext_attributes..
8041 Mounting filesystem...
8042 # df -h /s3ql
8043 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
8044 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
8045 #
8046 </pre></blockquote></p>
8047
8048 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
8049 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
8050 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
8051 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
8052 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
8053 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
8054
8055 <p><blockquote><pre>
8056 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
8057 #
8058 </pre></blockquote></p>
8059
8060 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
8061 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
8062 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
8063 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
8064 file system:</p>
8065
8066 <p><blockquote><pre>
8067 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8068 Using cached metadata.
8069 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
8070 Checking DB integrity...
8071 Creating temporary extra indices...
8072 Checking lost+found...
8073 Checking cached objects...
8074 Checking names (refcounts)...
8075 Checking contents (names)...
8076 Checking contents (inodes)...
8077 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
8078 Checking objects (reference counts)...
8079 Checking objects (backend)...
8080 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
8081 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
8082 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
8083 Checking objects (sizes)...
8084 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
8085 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
8086 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
8087 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
8088 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
8089 Checking inodes (sizes)...
8090 Checking extended attributes (names)...
8091 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
8092 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
8093 Checking directory reachability...
8094 Checking unix conventions...
8095 Checking referential integrity...
8096 Dropping temporary indices...
8097 Backing up old metadata...
8098 Dumping metadata...
8099 ..objects..
8100 ..blocks..
8101 ..inodes..
8102 ..inode_blocks..
8103 ..symlink_targets..
8104 ..names..
8105 ..contents..
8106 ..ext_attributes..
8107 Compressing and uploading metadata...
8108 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
8109 #
8110 </pre></blockquote></p>
8111
8112 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
8113 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
8114 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
8115 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
8116 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
8117 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
8118 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
8119 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
8120 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
8121 working set.</p>
8122
8123 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
8124 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
8125 busy:</p>
8126
8127 <p><blockquote><pre>
8128 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8129   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
8130 Using 8 upload threads.
8131 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
8132 #
8133 </pre></blockquote></p>
8134
8135 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
8136 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
8137 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
8138 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
8139 s3qlctrl:
8140
8141 <p><blockquote><pre>
8142 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
8143 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
8144 #
8145 </pre></blockquote></p>
8146
8147 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
8148 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
8149 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
8150 a report:</p>
8151
8152 <p><blockquote><pre>
8153 # s3qlstat /s3ql
8154 Directory entries:    9141
8155 Inodes:               9143
8156 Data blocks:          8851
8157 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
8158 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
8159 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
8160 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
8161 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
8162 #
8163 </pre></blockquote></p>
8164
8165 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
8166 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
8167 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
8168 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
8169 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
8170 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
8171 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
8172 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
8173 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
8174 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
8175 best.</p>
8176
8177 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
8178 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
8179 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
8180 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
8181 poster is titled
8182 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
8183 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
8184 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
8185 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
8186 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
8187
8188 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
8189 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
8190 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
8191 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
8192 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
8193 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
8194 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
8195 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
8196
8197 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
8198 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
8199 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
8200 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
8201 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
8202 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
8203 only read from it.</p>
8204
8205 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8206 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8207 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8208
8209       </div>
8210       <div class="tags">
8211
8212
8213         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
8214
8215
8216       </div>
8217     </div>
8218     <div class="padding"></div>
8219
8220     <div class="entry">
8221       <div class="title">
8222         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
8223       </div>
8224       <div class="date">
8225         14th March 2014
8226       </div>
8227       <div class="body">
8228         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
8229 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
8230 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
8231 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
8232 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
8233 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
8234 release (0.2).</p>
8235
8236 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
8237 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
8238 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
8239 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
8240 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
8241 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
8242 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
8243 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
8244 and build using
8245 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
8246 with a user with sudo access to become root:
8247
8248 <pre>
8249 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
8250   freedom-maker
8251 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
8252   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
8253   u-boot-tools
8254 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
8255 </pre>
8256
8257 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
8258 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
8259 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
8260 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
8261 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
8262 kpartx call.</p>
8263
8264 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
8265 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
8266 the preseed values:</p>
8267
8268 <pre>
8269 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
8270 </pre>
8271
8272 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
8273 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
8274 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
8275 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
8276 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
8277 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
8278
8279 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
8280 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
8281 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
8282 irc.debian.org)</a> and
8283 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8284 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8285
8286       </div>
8287       <div class="tags">
8288
8289
8290         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8291
8292
8293       </div>
8294     </div>
8295     <div class="padding"></div>
8296
8297     <div class="entry">
8298       <div class="title">
8299         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
8300       </div>
8301       <div class="date">
8302         22nd February 2014
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="body">
8305         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
8306 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
8307 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
8308 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
8309 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
8310 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
8311 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
8312 proper home since then.</p>
8313
8314 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
8315 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
8316 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
8317 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
8318 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
8319
8320 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
8321 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
8322 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
8323 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
8324 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
8325 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
8326 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
8327 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
8328 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
8329
8330       </div>
8331       <div class="tags">
8332
8333
8334         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8335
8336
8337       </div>
8338     </div>
8339     <div class="padding"></div>
8340
8341     <div class="entry">
8342       <div class="title">
8343         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
8344       </div>
8345       <div class="date">
8346          3rd February 2014
8347       </div>
8348       <div class="body">
8349         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
8350 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
8351 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
8352 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
8353 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
8354 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
8355 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
8356 <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>,
8357 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
8358
8359 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
8360 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
8361 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
8362 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
8363 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
8364 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
8365
8366 <p><blockquote><pre>
8367 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
8368 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
8369 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
8370 dhclient /dev/eth0
8371 </pre></blockquote></p>
8372
8373 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
8374 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
8375 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
8376
8377 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
8378 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
8379 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
8380 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
8381 side.</p>
8382
8383 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
8384 stuff:</p>
8385
8386 <p><blockquote><pre>
8387 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8388 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
8389 EOF
8390 apt-get update
8391 apt-get dist-upgrade
8392 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
8393     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
8394 update-alternatives --config runsystem
8395 </pre></blockquote></p>
8396
8397 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
8398 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
8399 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
8400 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
8401 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
8402 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
8403 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
8404 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
8405 ssh instead.
8406
8407 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
8408 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
8409 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
8410 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
8411 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
8412 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
8413
8414 <p><blockquote><pre>
8415 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8416 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
8417 EOF
8418 </pre></blockquote></p>
8419
8420 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
8421 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
8422 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
8423 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
8424
8425 <p><blockquote><pre>
8426 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
8427 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
8428 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
8429 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
8430 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
8431 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
8432 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
8433 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
8434 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
8435 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
8436 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
8437 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
8438 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
8439 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
8440 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
8441 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
8442 #
8443 </pre></blockquote></p>
8444
8445 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
8446 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
8447 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
8448 command line stuff.<p>
8449
8450       </div>
8451       <div class="tags">
8452
8453
8454         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8455
8456
8457       </div>
8458     </div>
8459     <div class="padding"></div>
8460
8461     <div class="entry">
8462       <div class="title">
8463         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
8464       </div>
8465       <div class="date">
8466         14th January 2014
8467       </div>
8468       <div class="body">
8469         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
8470 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
8471 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
8472 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
8473 the source.  The company behind it provide
8474 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
8475 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
8476 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
8477 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
8478 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
8479 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
8480 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
8481 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
8482 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
8483 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
8484 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
8485 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
8486 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
8487 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
8488 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
8489 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
8490 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
8491 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
8492 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
8493
8494 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
8495
8496 <ul>
8497
8498   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
8499   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
8500   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
8501
8502 </ul>
8503
8504 <p>You can
8505 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8506 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8507 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8508 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8509 include a test suite check.</p>
8510
8511       </div>
8512       <div class="tags">
8513
8514
8515         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8516
8517
8518       </div>
8519     </div>
8520     <div class="padding"></div>
8521
8522     <div class="entry">
8523       <div class="title">
8524         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
8525       </div>
8526       <div class="date">
8527         24th November 2013
8528       </div>
8529       <div class="body">
8530         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
8531 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
8532 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
8533 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
8534 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
8535 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
8536 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
8537 is working on.  I checked the
8538 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
8539 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
8540 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
8541 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
8542 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
8543 These are the release notes:</p>
8544
8545 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
8546
8547 <ul>
8548
8549   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
8550    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
8551    up.</li>
8552
8553   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
8554
8555   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
8556    Matthias Klose.</li>
8557
8558   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
8559    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
8560
8561   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
8562    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
8563    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
8564
8565 </ul>
8566
8567 <p>You can
8568 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8569 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8570 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8571 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8572 include a testsuite check.</p>
8573
8574       </div>
8575       <div class="tags">
8576
8577
8578         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8579
8580
8581       </div>
8582     </div>
8583     <div class="padding"></div>
8584
8585     <div class="entry">
8586       <div class="title">
8587         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
8588       </div>
8589       <div class="date">
8590          2nd November 2013
8591       </div>
8592       <div class="body">
8593         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
8594 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
8595 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
8596 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
8597 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
8598
8599 <p><pre>
8600 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
8601 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
8602 # Provides:          rsyslog
8603 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
8604 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
8605 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
8606 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
8607 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
8608 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
8609 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
8610 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
8611 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
8612 ### END INIT INFO
8613 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
8614 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
8615 </pre></p>
8616
8617 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
8618 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
8619 info/comments.</p>
8620
8621 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
8622 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
8623
8624 <p><pre>
8625 #!/bin/sh
8626
8627 # Define LSB log_* functions.
8628 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
8629 # and status_of_proc is working.
8630 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
8631
8632 #
8633 # Function that starts the daemon/service
8634
8635 #
8636 do_start()
8637 {
8638         # Return
8639         #   0 if daemon has been started
8640         #   1 if daemon was already running
8641         #   2 if daemon could not be started
8642         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
8643                 || return 1
8644         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
8645                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
8646                 || return 2
8647         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
8648         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
8649         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
8650 }
8651
8652 #
8653 # Function that stops the daemon/service
8654 #
8655 do_stop()
8656 {
8657         # Return
8658         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
8659         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
8660         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
8661         #   other if a failure occurred
8662         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8663         RETVAL="$?"
8664         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
8665         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
8666         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
8667         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
8668         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
8669         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
8670         # sleep for some time.
8671         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
8672         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
8673         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
8674         rm -f $PIDFILE
8675         return "$RETVAL"
8676 }
8677
8678 #
8679 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
8680 #
8681 do_reload() {
8682         #
8683         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
8684         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
8685         # then implement that here.
8686         #
8687         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8688         return 0
8689 }
8690
8691 SCRIPTNAME=$1
8692 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
8693 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
8694 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
8695     script="$1"
8696     shift
8697     . $script
8698 else
8699     exit 0
8700 fi
8701
8702 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
8703 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
8704
8705 # Exit if the package is not installed
8706 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
8707
8708 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
8709 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
8710
8711 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
8712 . /lib/init/vars.sh
8713
8714 case "$1" in
8715   start)
8716         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
8717         do_start
8718         case "$?" in
8719                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8720                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8721         esac
8722         ;;
8723   stop)
8724         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
8725         do_stop
8726         case "$?" in
8727                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8728                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8729         esac
8730         ;;
8731   status)
8732         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
8733         ;;
8734   #reload|force-reload)
8735         #
8736         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
8737         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
8738         #
8739         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
8740         #do_reload
8741         #log_end_msg $?
8742         #;;
8743   restart|force-reload)
8744         #
8745         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
8746         # 'force-reload' alias
8747         #
8748         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
8749         do_stop
8750         case "$?" in
8751           0|1)
8752                 do_start
8753                 case "$?" in
8754                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
8755                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
8756                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
8757                 esac
8758                 ;;
8759           *)
8760                 # Failed to stop
8761                 log_end_msg 1
8762                 ;;
8763         esac
8764         ;;
8765   *)
8766         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
8767         exit 3
8768         ;;
8769 esac
8770
8771 :
8772 </pre></p>
8773
8774 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
8775 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
8776 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
8777 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
8778
8779 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
8780 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
8781 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
8782 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
8783 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
8784
8785       </div>
8786       <div class="tags">
8787
8788
8789         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8790
8791
8792       </div>
8793     </div>
8794     <div class="padding"></div>
8795
8796     <div class="entry">
8797       <div class="title">
8798         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
8799       </div>
8800       <div class="date">
8801          1st November 2013
8802       </div>
8803       <div class="body">
8804         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
8805 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
8806 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
8807 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
8808 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
8809 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
8810 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
8811 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
8812 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
8813 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
8814 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
8815 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
8816
8817 <p>The source is now available from
8818 <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>
8819
8820       </div>
8821       <div class="tags">
8822
8823
8824         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8825
8826
8827       </div>
8828     </div>
8829     <div class="padding"></div>
8830
8831     <div class="entry">
8832       <div class="title">
8833         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
8834       </div>
8835       <div class="date">
8836         27th October 2013
8837       </div>
8838       <div class="body">
8839         <p>The
8840 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
8841 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
8842 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
8843 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
8844 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
8845 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
8846 of a plan to simplify the build system for
8847 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
8848 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
8849 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
8850 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
8851 Raspberry Pi.</p>
8852
8853 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
8854 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
8855 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
8856 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
8857 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
8858 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
8859 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
8860 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
8861 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
8862 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
8863 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
8864 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
8865 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
8866 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
8867 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
8868 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
8869 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
8870 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
8871 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
8872 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
8873 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
8874 available from
8875 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
8876 upstream project page</a>.</p>
8877
8878 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
8879 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
8880 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
8881 list:</p>
8882
8883 <p><pre>
8884 #!/bin/sh
8885 set -e # Exit on first error
8886 rootdir="$1"
8887 cd "$rootdir"
8888 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
8889 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
8890 EOF
8891 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
8892 # install a kernel somewhere too.
8893 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
8894     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8895 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8896 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
8897 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
8898 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
8899 </pre></p>
8900
8901 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
8902 to build the image:</p>
8903
8904 <pre>
8905 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
8906     --variant minbase \
8907     --arch armel \
8908     --distribution jessie \
8909     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
8910     --image test.img \
8911     --size 600M \
8912     --bootsize 64M \
8913     --boottype vfat \
8914     --log-level debug \
8915     --verbose \
8916     --no-kernel \
8917     --no-extlinux \
8918     --root-password raspberry \
8919     --hostname raspberrypi \
8920     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
8921     --customize `pwd`/customize \
8922     --package netbase \
8923     --package git-core \
8924     --package binutils \
8925     --package ca-certificates \
8926     --package wget \
8927     --package kmod
8928 </pre></p>
8929
8930 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
8931 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
8932 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
8933 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
8934 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
8935 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
8936 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
8937
8938 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
8939 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
8940 build dependency list.</p>
8941
8942 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
8943 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
8944 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
8945 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
8946
8947       </div>
8948       <div class="tags">
8949
8950
8951         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
8952
8953
8954       </div>
8955     </div>
8956     <div class="padding"></div>
8957
8958     <div class="entry">
8959       <div class="title">
8960         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
8961       </div>
8962       <div class="date">
8963         15th October 2013
8964       </div>
8965       <div class="body">
8966         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
8967 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
8968 these. :)</p>
8969
8970 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
8971 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
8972 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
8973 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
8974 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
8975 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
8976 hope you will to. :)</p>
8977
8978 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
8979 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
8980 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
8981 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
8982 donated.  Are you next?</p>
8983
8984 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
8985 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
8986 statement under the heading
8987 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
8988 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
8989 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
8990 too.</p>
8991
8992       </div>
8993       <div class="tags">
8994
8995
8996         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
8997
8998
8999       </div>
9000     </div>
9001     <div class="padding"></div>
9002
9003     <div class="entry">
9004       <div class="title">
9005         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
9006       </div>
9007       <div class="date">
9008         27th September 2013
9009       </div>
9010       <div class="body">
9011         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
9012 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
9013 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
9014 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
9015
9016 <ul>
9017
9018 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
9019 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
9020
9021 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
9022 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
9023
9024 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
9025 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
9026 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
9027 (Youtube)</li>
9028
9029 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
9030 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
9031
9032 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
9033 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
9034
9035 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
9036 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
9037 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
9038
9039 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
9040 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
9041 (Youtube)</li>
9042
9043 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
9044 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
9045
9046 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
9047 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
9048
9049 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
9050 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
9051 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
9052
9053 </ul>
9054
9055 <p>A larger list is available from
9056 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
9057 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
9058
9059 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
9060 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
9061 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
9062 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
9063 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
9064 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
9065 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
9066 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
9067 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
9068 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
9069 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
9070
9071       </div>
9072       <div class="tags">
9073
9074
9075         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9076
9077
9078       </div>
9079     </div>
9080     <div class="padding"></div>
9081
9082     <div class="entry">
9083       <div class="title">
9084         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
9085       </div>
9086       <div class="date">
9087         10th September 2013
9088       </div>
9089       <div class="body">
9090         <p>I was introduced to the
9091 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
9092 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
9093 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
9094 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
9095 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
9096 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
9097 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
9098 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
9099
9100 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
9101 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
9102 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
9103 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
9104 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
9105
9106 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
9107 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
9108 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
9109 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
9110 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
9111 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
9112 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
9113 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
9114 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
9115 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
9116 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
9117 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
9118 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
9119 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
9120 missing in Debian).</p>
9121
9122 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
9123 scripts
9124 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
9125 and a administrative web interface
9126 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
9127 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
9128 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
9129 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
9130 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
9131 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
9132 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
9133 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
9134 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
9135 this is really working yet, see
9136 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
9137 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
9138 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
9139 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
9140 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
9141 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
9142 with lots of half baked features.</p>
9143
9144 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
9145 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
9146 at.</p>
9147
9148 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
9149
9150 <ol>
9151
9152 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
9153 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
9154 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
9155 to the Debian installer:<p>
9156 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
9157
9158 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
9159 install on.</li>
9160
9161 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
9162 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
9163
9164 </ol>
9165
9166 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
9167
9168 <ol>
9169
9170 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
9171 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
9172 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
9173 <pre>
9174 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
9175 </pre></li>
9176 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
9177 <pre>
9178 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
9179    apt-key add -
9180 apt-get update
9181 apt-get install freedombox-setup
9182 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
9183 </pre></li>
9184 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
9185
9186 </ol>
9187
9188 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
9189 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
9190 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
9191 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
9192 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
9193
9194 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
9195 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
9196 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
9197 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
9198
9199 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
9200 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
9201 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
9202 irc.debian.org and the
9203 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
9204 mailing list</a>.</p>
9205
9206 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
9207 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
9208 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
9209 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
9210 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
9211 default password is 'secret'.</p>
9212
9213       </div>
9214       <div class="tags">
9215
9216
9217         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
9218
9219
9220       </div>
9221     </div>
9222     <div class="padding"></div>
9223
9224     <div class="entry">
9225       <div class="title">
9226         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
9227       </div>
9228       <div class="date">
9229         18th August 2013
9230       </div>
9231       <div class="body">
9232         <p>Earlier, I reported about
9233 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
9234 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
9235 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
9236 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
9237 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
9238 currently on the disk.</p>
9239
9240 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
9241 <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>
9242 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
9243 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
9244 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
9245 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
9246 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
9247 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
9248 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
9249 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
9250 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
9251 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
9252 the broken disks.</p>
9253
9254       </div>
9255       <div class="tags">
9256
9257
9258         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9259
9260
9261       </div>
9262     </div>
9263     <div class="padding"></div>
9264
9265     <div class="entry">
9266       <div class="title">
9267         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
9268       </div>
9269       <div class="date">
9270         17th July 2013
9271       </div>
9272       <div class="body">
9273         <p>Today I switched to
9274 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
9275 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
9276 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
9277 <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
9278 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
9279 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
9280 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
9281 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
9282 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
9283 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
9284 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
9285 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
9286 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
9287 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
9288 station from now on.</p>
9289
9290 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
9291 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
9292 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
9293 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
9294 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
9295 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
9296 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
9297 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
9298 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
9299 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
9300 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
9301 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
9302
9303 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
9304 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
9305 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
9306 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
9307 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
9308 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
9309 parameters are tuned:</p>
9310
9311 <ul>
9312
9313 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
9314     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
9315
9316 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
9317     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
9318     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
9319
9320 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
9321     systems.</li>
9322
9323 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
9324     /etc/fstab.</li>
9325
9326 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
9327
9328 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
9329     cron.daily).</li>
9330
9331 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
9332     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
9333
9334 </ul>
9335
9336 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
9337 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
9338 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
9339 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
9340 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
9341 from getting the data on the disk (see
9342 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
9343 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
9344 right thing to do.</p>
9345
9346 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
9347 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
9348 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
9349
9350 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
9351 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
9352 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
9353 instead of during my work.</p>
9354
9355 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
9356 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
9357
9358 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
9359 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
9360 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
9361
9362 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
9363 there.</p>
9364
9365 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
9366 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
9367 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
9368 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
9369 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
9370 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
9371 back.</p>
9372
9373       </div>
9374       <div class="tags">
9375
9376
9377         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9378
9379
9380       </div>
9381     </div>
9382     <div class="padding"></div>
9383
9384     <div class="entry">
9385       <div class="title">
9386         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
9387       </div>
9388       <div class="date">
9389         10th July 2013
9390       </div>
9391       <div class="body">
9392         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
9393 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
9394 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
9395 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
9396 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
9397 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
9398 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
9399 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
9400
9401 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
9402 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
9403 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
9404 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
9405 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
9406 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
9407 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
9408 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
9409 lock up when I download a new
9410 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
9411 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
9412 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
9413
9414 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9415 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
9416 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9417 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
9418 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9419 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9420
9421 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9422 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
9423 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9424 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
9425 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9426 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9427
9428 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
9429 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
9430 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
9431 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
9432 exist).</p>
9433
9434       </div>
9435       <div class="tags">
9436
9437
9438         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9439
9440
9441       </div>
9442     </div>
9443     <div class="padding"></div>
9444
9445     <div class="entry">
9446       <div class="title">
9447         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
9448       </div>
9449       <div class="date">
9450          9th July 2013
9451       </div>
9452       <div class="body">
9453         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
9454 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
9455 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
9456 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
9457 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9458 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
9459 Bitraf</a>.</p>
9460
9461 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
9462 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
9463 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
9464 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
9465 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
9466
9467       </div>
9468       <div class="tags">
9469
9470
9471         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9472
9473
9474       </div>
9475     </div>
9476     <div class="padding"></div>
9477
9478     <div class="entry">
9479       <div class="title">
9480         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
9481       </div>
9482       <div class="date">
9483          5th July 2013
9484       </div>
9485       <div class="body">
9486         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
9487 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
9488 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
9489 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
9490 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
9491 ended up picking a
9492 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
9493 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
9494 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
9495 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
9496 on that below.</p>
9497
9498 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9499 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9500 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9501 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9502 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9503 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
9504 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
9505 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
9506 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
9507
9508 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
9509 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
9510 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
9511 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
9512 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
9513 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
9514 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
9515
9516 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
9517 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
9518
9519 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
9520 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
9521 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
9522 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
9523 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
9524 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
9525 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
9526 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
9527 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
9528 kernel developers as
9529 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
9530 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
9531 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
9532 Lenovo forums, both for
9533 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
9534 2012-11-10</a> and for
9535 <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
9536 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
9537 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
9538 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
9539 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
9540 There is even a
9541 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
9542 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
9543 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
9544
9545 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
9546 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
9547 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
9548 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
9549 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
9550 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
9551 fixed. :)</p>
9552
9553       </div>
9554       <div class="tags">
9555
9556
9557         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9558
9559
9560       </div>
9561     </div>
9562     <div class="padding"></div>
9563
9564     <div class="entry">
9565       <div class="title">
9566         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
9567       </div>
9568       <div class="date">
9569          4th July 2013
9570       </div>
9571       <div class="body">
9572         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
9573 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
9574 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
9575 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
9576 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
9577 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
9578 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
9579 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
9580 with an expencive door stop.</p>
9581
9582 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9583 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9584 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9585 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9586 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9587 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
9588 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
9589
9590 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
9591 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
9592 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
9593 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
9594 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
9595 new laptop now. :)</p>
9596
9597 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
9598
9599       </div>
9600       <div class="tags">
9601
9602
9603         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9604
9605
9606       </div>
9607     </div>
9608     <div class="padding"></div>
9609
9610     <div class="entry">
9611       <div class="title">
9612         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
9613       </div>
9614       <div class="date">
9615         25th June 2013
9616       </div>
9617       <div class="body">
9618         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
9619 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
9620 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
9621 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
9622 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
9623 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
9624 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
9625 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
9626 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
9627 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
9628 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
9629
9630 <p><pre>
9631 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9632 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
9633 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
9634 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
9635 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
9636 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
9637 firmware-ipw2x00
9638 firmware-ipw2x00
9639 Preconfiguring packages ...
9640 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
9641 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
9642 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
9643 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
9644 #
9645 </pre></p>
9646
9647 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
9648 printed instead:</p>
9649
9650 <p><pre>
9651 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9652 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
9653 #
9654 </pre></p>
9655
9656 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
9657 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
9658
9659 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
9660 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
9661 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
9662 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
9663 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
9664 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
9665 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
9666 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
9667 machine.</p>
9668
9669 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
9670 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
9671 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
9672 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
9673 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
9674 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
9675
9676       </div>
9677       <div class="tags">
9678
9679
9680         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9681
9682
9683       </div>
9684     </div>
9685     <div class="padding"></div>
9686
9687     <div class="entry">
9688       <div class="title">
9689         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
9690       </div>
9691       <div class="date">
9692         11th June 2013
9693       </div>
9694       <div class="body">
9695         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
9696 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
9697 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
9698 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
9699 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
9700 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
9701 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
9702 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
9703 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
9704 i915 driver used by the
9705 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9706 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
9707
9708 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
9709 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
9710 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
9711 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
9712 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
9713
9714 <pre>
9715 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
9716 update-initramfs -u -k all
9717 </pre>
9718
9719 <p>Since March 2012 there is
9720 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
9721 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
9722 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
9723 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
9724 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
9725 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
9726 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
9727 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
9728 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
9729 number.</p>
9730
9731 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
9732 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
9733
9734 <p><pre>
9735 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
9736     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
9737     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
9738  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
9739  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
9740     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
9741  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
9742     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
9743  Latency: 0
9744  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
9745  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
9746  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
9747  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
9748  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
9749  Capabilities: <access denied>
9750  Kernel driver in use: i915
9751 </pre></p>
9752
9753 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
9754
9755 <p><pre>
9756 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
9757        ...
9758         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
9759         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
9760        ...
9761 }
9762 </pre></p>
9763
9764 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
9765 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
9766 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
9767 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
9768 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
9769 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
9770 yet shown up in
9771 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
9772 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
9773 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
9774 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
9775 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
9776 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
9777
9778 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
9779 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
9780 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
9781 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
9782 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
9783 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
9784 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
9785 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
9786 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
9787 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
9788 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
9789 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
9790
9791 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
9792 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
9793 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
9794 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
9795 backlight.</p>
9796
9797       </div>
9798       <div class="tags">
9799
9800
9801         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9802
9803
9804       </div>
9805     </div>
9806     <div class="padding"></div>
9807
9808     <div class="entry">
9809       <div class="title">
9810         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
9811       </div>
9812       <div class="date">
9813         27th May 2013
9814       </div>
9815       <div class="body">
9816         <p>Two days ago, I asked
9817 <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
9818 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
9819 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
9820 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
9821 and Windows 8.</p>
9822
9823 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
9824 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
9825 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
9826 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
9827 enough to tell.</p>
9828
9829 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
9830 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
9831 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
9832 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
9833 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
9834 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
9835 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
9836 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
9837 to follow.</p>
9838
9839 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
9840 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
9841 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
9842 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
9843 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
9844 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
9845 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
9846 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
9847
9848 <p>I've updated the
9849 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
9850 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
9851 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
9852 machine.</p>
9853
9854 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
9855 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
9856
9857       </div>
9858       <div class="tags">
9859
9860
9861         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9862
9863
9864       </div>
9865     </div>
9866     <div class="padding"></div>
9867
9868     <div class="entry">
9869       <div class="title">
9870         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
9871       </div>
9872       <div class="date">
9873         25th May 2013
9874       </div>
9875       <div class="body">
9876         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
9877 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
9878 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
9879 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
9880 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
9881 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
9882
9883 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
9884 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
9885 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
9886 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
9887 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
9888 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
9889 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
9890 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
9891 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
9892 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
9893
9894 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
9895 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9896 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
9897 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
9898 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
9899 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
9900
9901 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
9902 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
9903 on new Laptops?</p>
9904
9905       </div>
9906       <div class="tags">
9907
9908
9909         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9910
9911
9912       </div>
9913     </div>
9914     <div class="padding"></div>
9915
9916     <div class="entry">
9917       <div class="title">
9918         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
9919       </div>
9920       <div class="date">
9921         17th May 2013
9922       </div>
9923       <div class="body">
9924         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
9925 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
9926 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
9927 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
9928 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
9929 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
9930 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
9931 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
9932 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
9933 donate some money</a>.
9934
9935 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
9936 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
9937 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
9938 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
9939 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
9940
9941 <p>The script,
9942 <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/>
9943 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
9944 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
9945 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
9946
9947 <ol>
9948
9949 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
9950 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
9951 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
9952     our configuration.</li>
9953 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
9954     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
9955     according to the profile specified in the config above,
9956     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
9957 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
9958     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
9959 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
9960
9961 </ol>
9962
9963 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
9964 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
9965 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
9966 the needed packages.</p>
9967
9968 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
9969 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
9970 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
9971 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
9972 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
9973 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
9974
9975 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
9976 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
9977 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
9978
9979 <p><pre>
9980 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
9981 DESKTOP="lxde"
9982 </pre></p>
9983
9984 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
9985 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
9986 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
9987 boot.</p>
9988
9989       </div>
9990       <div class="tags">
9991
9992
9993         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9994
9995
9996       </div>
9997     </div>
9998     <div class="padding"></div>
9999
10000     <div class="entry">
10001       <div class="title">
10002         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
10003       </div>
10004       <div class="date">
10005         11th May 2013
10006       </div>
10007       <div class="body">
10008         <P>In January,
10009 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
10010 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
10011 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
10012 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
10013 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
10014 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
10015 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
10016 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
10017 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
10018 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
10019 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
10020 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
10021
10022 <p><table>
10023 <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>
10024 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
10025 <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>
10026 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
10027 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
10028 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
10029 <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>
10030 <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>
10031 <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>
10032 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
10033 </table></p>
10034
10035 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
10036 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
10037 available in experimental.</p>
10038
10039 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
10040 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
10041 for LEGO designers.</p>
10042
10043       </div>
10044       <div class="tags">
10045
10046
10047         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
10048
10049
10050       </div>
10051     </div>
10052     <div class="padding"></div>
10053
10054     <div class="entry">
10055       <div class="title">
10056         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
10057       </div>
10058       <div class="date">
10059          5th May 2013
10060       </div>
10061       <div class="body">
10062         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
10063 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
10064 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
10065 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
10066 soon.</p>
10067
10068 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
10069 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
10070 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
10071 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
10072 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
10073 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
10074 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
10075 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
10076 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
10077 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
10078 Edu.</a>
10079
10080 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
10081 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
10082 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
10083 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
10084 follow.<p>
10085
10086       </div>
10087       <div class="tags">
10088
10089
10090         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10091
10092
10093       </div>
10094     </div>
10095     <div class="padding"></div>
10096
10097     <div class="entry">
10098       <div class="title">
10099         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
10100       </div>
10101       <div class="date">
10102          3rd April 2013
10103       </div>
10104       <div class="body">
10105         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
10106 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
10107 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
10108 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
10109
10110 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
10111 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
10112 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
10113 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
10114 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
10115 BTS. :)</p>
10116
10117       </div>
10118       <div class="tags">
10119
10120
10121         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10122
10123
10124       </div>
10125     </div>
10126     <div class="padding"></div>
10127
10128     <div class="entry">
10129       <div class="title">
10130         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
10131       </div>
10132       <div class="date">
10133          2nd February 2013
10134       </div>
10135       <div class="body">
10136         <p>My
10137 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
10138 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
10139 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
10140 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
10141 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
10142 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
10143 version too.</p>
10144
10145 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
10146 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
10147 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
10148 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
10149 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
10150 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
10151 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
10152 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
10153
10154 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
10155 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
10156 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
10157 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
10158 it. :)</p>
10159
10160 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
10161 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
10162 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10163
10164       </div>
10165       <div class="tags">
10166
10167
10168         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10169
10170
10171       </div>
10172     </div>
10173     <div class="padding"></div>
10174
10175     <div class="entry">
10176       <div class="title">
10177         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
10178       </div>
10179       <div class="date">
10180         22nd January 2013
10181       </div>
10182       <div class="body">
10183         <p>Yesterday, I
10184 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
10185 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
10186 pluggable hardware devices, which I
10187 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
10188 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
10189 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
10190 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
10191 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
10192 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
10193 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
10194 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
10195 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
10196 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
10197
10198 <pre>
10199 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
10200 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
10201 </pre>
10202
10203 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
10204 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
10205 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
10206 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
10207
10208 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
10209 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
10210 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
10211 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
10212 word.</p>
10213
10214 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
10215 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
10216 process.</p>
10217
10218 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
10219 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
10220
10221       </div>
10222       <div class="tags">
10223
10224
10225         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10226
10227
10228       </div>
10229     </div>
10230     <div class="padding"></div>
10231
10232     <div class="entry">
10233       <div class="title">
10234         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
10235       </div>
10236       <div class="date">
10237         21st January 2013
10238       </div>
10239       <div class="body">
10240         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
10241 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
10242 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
10243 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
10244 it, fetch the
10245 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
10246 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
10247 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
10248 autostart script.</p>
10249
10250 <p>The design is simple:</p>
10251
10252 <ul>
10253
10254 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
10255 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
10256
10257 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
10258 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
10259 initially did.</li>
10260
10261 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
10262 the APT database, a database
10263 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
10264 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
10265
10266 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
10267 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
10268 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
10269 package or packages.</li>
10270
10271 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
10272 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
10273
10274 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
10275 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
10276
10277 </ul>
10278
10279 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
10280 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
10281 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
10282 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
10283
10284 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
10285 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
10286 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
10287 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
10288 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
10289
10290 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
10291 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
10292 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
10293 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
10294 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
10295 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
10296 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
10297 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
10298
10299 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
10300 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
10301 '<tt>svn checkout
10302 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
10303 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
10304 devscripts package.</p>
10305
10306 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
10307 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
10308 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
10309 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
10310 instructions</a> for details.</p>
10311
10312       </div>
10313       <div class="tags">
10314
10315
10316         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10317
10318
10319       </div>
10320     </div>
10321     <div class="padding"></div>
10322
10323     <div class="entry">
10324       <div class="title">
10325         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
10326       </div>
10327       <div class="date">
10328         19th January 2013
10329       </div>
10330       <div class="body">
10331         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
10332 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
10333 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
10334 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
10335 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
10336 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
10337 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
10338 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
10339 not a durable solution.
10340
10341 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
10342 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
10343
10344 <ul>
10345
10346 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
10347   than A4).</li>
10348 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
10349 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
10350 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
10351 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
10352 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
10353 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
10354 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
10355 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
10356 size).</li>
10357 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
10358   X.org packages.</li>
10359 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
10360   the time).
10361
10362 </ul>
10363
10364 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
10365 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
10366 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
10367 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
10368 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
10369 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
10370 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
10371 still be useful.</p>
10372
10373 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
10374 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
10375 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
10376 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
10377 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
10378 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
10379
10380       </div>
10381       <div class="tags">
10382
10383
10384         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10385
10386
10387       </div>
10388     </div>
10389     <div class="padding"></div>
10390
10391     <div class="entry">
10392       <div class="title">
10393         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
10394       </div>
10395       <div class="date">
10396         18th January 2013
10397       </div>
10398       <div class="body">
10399         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
10400 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
10401 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
10402 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
10403 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
10404 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
10405 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
10406
10407 <pre>
10408 #!/usr/bin/python
10409 import sys
10410 import apt
10411 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10412     cache = apt.Cache()
10413     cache.open(None)
10414     thepkgs = []
10415     for pkg in cache:
10416         version = pkg.candidate
10417         if version is None:
10418             version = pkg.installed
10419         if version is None:
10420             continue
10421         record = version.record
10422         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
10423             continue
10424         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
10425         for t in mime_types:
10426             t = t.rstrip().strip()
10427             if t == mimetype:
10428                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
10429     return thepkgs
10430 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
10431 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
10432     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
10433 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
10434 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10435     print "  %s" %pkg
10436 </pre>
10437
10438 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
10439
10440 <pre>
10441 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
10442 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
10443   gecko-mediaplayer
10444 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
10445 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
10446   browser-plugin-gnash
10447 %
10448 </pre>
10449
10450 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
10451 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
10452 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
10453 anyone working on adding it?</p>
10454
10455 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
10456 request for icweasel support for this feature is
10457 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
10458 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
10459 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
10460 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
10461
10462       </div>
10463       <div class="tags">
10464
10465
10466         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10467
10468
10469       </div>
10470     </div>
10471     <div class="padding"></div>
10472
10473     <div class="entry">
10474       <div class="title">
10475         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
10476       </div>
10477       <div class="date">
10478         16th January 2013
10479       </div>
10480       <div class="body">
10481         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
10482 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
10483 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
10484 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
10485 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
10486 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
10487 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
10488 downloaded by the browser.</p>
10489
10490 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
10491 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
10492 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
10493 can be found on the
10494 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
10495 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
10496 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
10497 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
10498 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
10499
10500 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
10501
10502 <pre>
10503   count MIME type
10504   ----- -----------------------
10505      32 text/plain
10506      30 audio/mpeg
10507      29 image/png
10508      28 image/jpeg
10509      27 application/ogg
10510      26 audio/x-mp3
10511      25 image/tiff
10512      25 image/gif
10513      22 image/bmp
10514      22 audio/x-wav
10515      20 audio/x-flac
10516      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10517      18 video/x-ms-asf
10518      18 audio/x-musepack
10519      18 audio/x-mpeg
10520      18 application/x-ogg
10521      17 video/mpeg
10522      17 audio/x-scpls
10523      17 audio/ogg
10524      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10525 </pre>
10526
10527 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
10528
10529 <pre>
10530   count MIME type
10531   ----- -----------------------
10532      33 text/plain
10533      32 image/png
10534      32 image/jpeg
10535      29 audio/mpeg
10536      27 image/gif
10537      26 image/tiff
10538      26 application/ogg
10539      25 audio/x-mp3
10540      22 image/bmp
10541      21 audio/x-wav
10542      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10543      19 audio/x-mpeg
10544      18 video/mpeg
10545      18 audio/x-scpls
10546      18 audio/x-flac
10547      18 application/x-ogg
10548      17 video/x-ms-asf
10549      17 text/html
10550      17 audio/x-musepack
10551      16 image/x-xbitmap
10552 </pre>
10553
10554 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
10555
10556 <pre>
10557   count MIME type
10558   ----- -----------------------
10559      31 text/plain
10560      31 image/png
10561      31 image/jpeg
10562      29 audio/mpeg
10563      28 application/ogg
10564      27 image/gif
10565      26 image/tiff
10566      26 audio/x-mp3
10567      23 audio/x-wav
10568      22 image/bmp
10569      21 audio/x-flac
10570      20 audio/x-mpegurl
10571      19 audio/x-mpeg
10572      18 video/x-ms-asf
10573      18 video/mpeg
10574      18 audio/x-scpls
10575      18 application/x-ogg
10576      17 audio/x-musepack
10577      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10578      16 video/x-msvideo
10579 </pre>
10580
10581 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
10582 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
10583 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
10584 issues.</p>
10585
10586 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
10587 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
10588
10589       </div>
10590       <div class="tags">
10591
10592
10593         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10594
10595
10596       </div>
10597     </div>
10598     <div class="padding"></div>
10599
10600     <div class="entry">
10601       <div class="title">
10602         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
10603       </div>
10604       <div class="date">
10605         15th January 2013
10606       </div>
10607       <div class="body">
10608         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
10609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
10610 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
10611 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
10612 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
10613 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
10614 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
10615 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
10616 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
10617 packages.</p>
10618
10619 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
10620 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
10621 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
10622 modalias.</p>
10623
10624 <p><blockquote>
10625 Package: package-name
10626 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
10627 </blockquote></p>
10628
10629 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
10630 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
10631
10632 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
10633 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
10634
10635 <p><blockquote>
10636 Package: cheese
10637 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
10638 </blockquote></p>
10639
10640 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
10641 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
10642
10643 <p><blockquote>
10644 Package: pcmciautils
10645 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
10646 </blockquote></p>
10647
10648 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
10649 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
10650
10651 <p><blockquote>
10652 Package: colorhug-client
10653 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
10654 </blockquote></p>
10655
10656 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
10657 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
10658 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
10659
10660 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
10661 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
10662 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
10663 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
10664 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
10665 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
10666 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
10667 Raring.</p>
10668
10669 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
10670 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
10671 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
10672 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
10673 try the
10674 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
10675 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
10676 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
10677 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
10678
10679 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
10680 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
10681
10682 <p><blockquote>
10683 % ./hw-support-lookup
10684 <br>yubikey-personalization
10685 <br>%
10686 </blockquote></p>
10687
10688 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
10689 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
10690
10691 <p><blockquote>
10692 % ./hw-support-lookup
10693 <br>pcmciautils
10694 <br>%
10695 </blockquote></p>
10696
10697 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
10698 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
10699 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
10700
10701 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
10702 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
10703 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
10704 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
10705 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
10706 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
10707 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
10708 see if it work.</p>
10709
10710 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10711 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10712 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10713 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10714
10715       </div>
10716       <div class="tags">
10717
10718
10719         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10720
10721
10722       </div>
10723     </div>
10724     <div class="padding"></div>
10725
10726     <div class="entry">
10727       <div class="title">
10728         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
10729       </div>
10730       <div class="date">
10731         14th January 2013
10732       </div>
10733       <div class="body">
10734         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
10735 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
10736 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
10737 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
10738 in
10739 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
10740 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
10741
10742 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
10743
10744 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
10745 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
10746 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
10747 &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;,
10748 &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
10749 &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;.
10750
10751 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
10752 this shell script:</p>
10753
10754 <pre>
10755 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
10756 </pre>
10757
10758 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
10759 using modinfo:</p>
10760
10761 <pre>
10762 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
10763 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
10764 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
10765 %
10766 </pre>
10767
10768 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
10769
10770 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
10771 Bridge memory controller:</p>
10772
10773 <p><blockquote>
10774 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
10775 </blockquote></p>
10776
10777 <p>This represent these values:</p>
10778
10779 <pre>
10780  v   00008086  (vendor)
10781  d   00002770  (device)
10782  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
10783  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
10784  bc  06        (bus class)
10785  sc  00        (bus subclass)
10786  i   00        (interface)
10787 </pre>
10788
10789 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
10790 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
10791 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
10792 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
10793
10794 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
10795 means.</p>
10796
10797 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
10798
10799 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
10800 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
10801
10802 <p><blockquote>
10803 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
10804 </blockquote></p>
10805
10806 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
10807
10808 <pre>
10809  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
10810  p    0001  (device product)
10811  d    0206  (bcddevice)
10812  dc     09  (device class)
10813  dsc    00  (device subclass)
10814  dp     00  (device protocol)
10815  ic     09  (interface class)
10816  isc    00  (interface subclass)
10817  ip     00  (interface protocol)
10818 </pre>
10819
10820 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
10821 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
10822 these alias entries show up:</p>
10823
10824 <p><blockquote>
10825 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
10826 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
10827 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
10828 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
10829 </blockquote></p>
10830
10831 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
10832 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
10833 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
10834
10835 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
10836
10837 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
10838 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
10839
10840 <p><blockquote>
10841 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10842 </blockquote></p>
10843
10844 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
10845
10846 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
10847
10848 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
10849 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
10850 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
10851
10852 <p><blockquote>
10853 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
10854 </blockquote></p>
10855
10856 <p>The values present are</p>
10857
10858 <pre>
10859  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
10860  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
10861  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
10862  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
10863  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
10864  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
10865  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
10866  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
10867  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
10868  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
10869  ct   10             (chassis type)
10870  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
10871 </pre>
10872
10873 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
10874 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
10875
10876 <pre>
10877   3 Desktop
10878   4 Low Profile Desktop
10879   5 Pizza Box
10880   6 Mini Tower
10881   7 Tower
10882   8 Portable
10883   9 Laptop
10884  10 Notebook
10885  11 Hand Held
10886  12 Docking Station
10887  13 All In One
10888  14 Sub Notebook
10889  15 Space-saving
10890  16 Lunch Box
10891  17 Main Server Chassis
10892  18 Expansion Chassis
10893  19 Sub Chassis
10894  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
10895  21 Peripheral Chassis
10896  22 RAID Chassis
10897  23 Rack Mount Chassis
10898  24 Sealed-case PC
10899  25 Multi-system
10900  26 CompactPCI
10901  27 AdvancedTCA
10902  28 Blade
10903  29 Blade Enclosing
10904 </pre>
10905
10906 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
10907 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
10908 claim it is a desktop.</p>
10909
10910 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
10911
10912 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
10913 test machine:</p>
10914
10915 <p><blockquote>
10916 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
10917 </blockquote></p>
10918
10919 <p>The values present are</p>
10920
10921 <pre>
10922   ty  01  (type)
10923   pr  00  (prototype)
10924   id  00  (id)
10925   ex  00  (extra)
10926 </pre>
10927
10928 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
10929 the valid values are.</p>
10930
10931 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
10932
10933 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
10934 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
10935 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
10936 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
10937 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
10938 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
10939 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
10940
10941 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
10942
10943 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
10944 one can use the following shell script:</p>
10945
10946 <pre>
10947   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
10948     echo "$id" ; \
10949     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
10950   done
10951 </pre>
10952
10953 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
10954 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
10955
10956 <pre>
10957   acpi:ACPI0003:
10958     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
10959   acpi:device:
10960   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
10961   acpi:IBM0068:
10962     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
10963     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
10964     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
10965     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
10966   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10967     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
10968     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
10969     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
10970   [...]
10971 </pre>
10972
10973 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10974 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10975 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10976 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10977
10978 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
10979 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
10980 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
10981
10982       </div>
10983       <div class="tags">
10984
10985
10986         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10987
10988
10989       </div>
10990     </div>
10991     <div class="padding"></div>
10992
10993     <div class="entry">
10994       <div class="title">
10995         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
10996       </div>
10997       <div class="date">
10998         10th January 2013
10999       </div>
11000       <div class="body">
11001         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
11002 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
11003 Launcher and updated the Debian package
11004 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
11005 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
11006 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
11007 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
11008 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
11009 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
11010 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
11011 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
11012 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
11013 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
11014 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
11015 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
11016 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
11017 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
11018 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
11019
11020       </div>
11021       <div class="tags">
11022
11023
11024         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
11025
11026
11027       </div>
11028     </div>
11029     <div class="padding"></div>
11030
11031     <div class="entry">
11032       <div class="title">
11033         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
11034       </div>
11035       <div class="date">
11036          9th January 2013
11037       </div>
11038       <div class="body">
11039         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
11040 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
11041 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
11042 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
11043 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
11044 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
11045 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
11046 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
11047 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
11048 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
11049 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
11050
11051 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
11052 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
11053 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
11054 simple:
11055
11056 <ul>
11057
11058 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
11059   starting when a user log in.</li>
11060
11061 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
11062   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
11063
11064 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
11065   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
11066   packages.</li>
11067
11068 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
11069   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
11070
11071 </ul>
11072
11073 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
11074 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
11075 discover database to find packages and
11076 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
11077 packages.</p>
11078
11079 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
11080 draft package is now checked into
11081 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
11082 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
11083 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
11084 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
11085 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
11086 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
11087 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
11088 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
11089 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
11090 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
11091 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
11092 because of the freeze).</p>
11093
11094 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
11095 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
11096 inserted):</p>
11097
11098 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
11099
11100 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
11101 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
11102 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
11103
11104 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
11105 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
11106 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
11107 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
11108 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
11109 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
11110 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
11111
11112 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
11113 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
11114 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
11115 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
11116 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
11117 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
11118 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
11119 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
11120 not be installed?</p>
11121
11122 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
11123 please send me an email. :)</p>
11124
11125       </div>
11126       <div class="tags">
11127
11128
11129         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11130
11131
11132       </div>
11133     </div>
11134     <div class="padding"></div>
11135
11136     <div class="entry">
11137       <div class="title">
11138         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
11139       </div>
11140       <div class="date">
11141          2nd January 2013
11142       </div>
11143       <div class="body">
11144         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
11145 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
11146 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
11147 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
11148 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
11149 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
11150 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
11151 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
11152 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
11153 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
11154
11155 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
11156 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
11157 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
11158
11159       </div>
11160       <div class="tags">
11161
11162
11163         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
11164
11165
11166       </div>
11167     </div>
11168     <div class="padding"></div>
11169
11170     <div class="entry">
11171       <div class="title">
11172         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
11173       </div>
11174       <div class="date">
11175         25th December 2012
11176       </div>
11177       <div class="body">
11178         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
11179 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
11180
11181 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
11182 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
11183 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
11184 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
11185 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
11186 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
11187 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
11188 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
11189 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
11190 name.</p>
11191
11192 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
11193 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
11194 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
11195
11196 <blockquote><pre>
11197 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
11198 cd bitcoin
11199 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
11200 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
11201 </pre></blockquote>
11202
11203 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
11204 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
11205 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
11206 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
11207 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
11208 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
11209 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
11210 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
11211 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
11212
11213 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
11214 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
11215 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11216
11217       </div>
11218       <div class="tags">
11219
11220
11221         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11222
11223
11224       </div>
11225     </div>
11226     <div class="padding"></div>
11227
11228     <div class="entry">
11229       <div class="title">
11230         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
11231       </div>
11232       <div class="date">
11233         21st December 2012
11234       </div>
11235       <div class="body">
11236         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
11237 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
11238 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
11239 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
11240 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
11241 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
11242 is now maintained by a
11243 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
11244 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
11245 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
11246 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
11247 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
11248 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
11249 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
11250 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
11251 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
11252 Corallo in a
11253 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
11254 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
11255 Debian package.</p>
11256
11257 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
11258 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
11259 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
11260 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
11261 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
11262 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
11263 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
11264 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
11265 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
11266 new version to unstable.
11267
11268 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
11269 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
11270 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
11271 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
11272 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
11273 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
11274 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
11275 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
11276 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
11277 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
11278 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
11279 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
11280 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
11281 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
11282 have not tested them.</p>
11283
11284 <p>My
11285 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
11286 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
11287 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
11288 years ago, as can be
11289 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
11290 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
11291 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
11292 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
11293 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
11294 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
11295 the same address as last time,
11296 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11297
11298       </div>
11299       <div class="tags">
11300
11301
11302         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11303
11304
11305       </div>
11306     </div>
11307     <div class="padding"></div>
11308
11309     <div class="entry">
11310       <div class="title">
11311         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11312       </div>
11313       <div class="date">
11314          7th September 2012
11315       </div>
11316       <div class="body">
11317         <p>As I
11318 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
11319 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
11320 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
11321 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
11322 repository for the project</a>.</p>
11323
11324 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
11325 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
11326 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
11327 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
11328
11329 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
11330 PostScript formats at
11331 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
11332 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
11333
11334       </div>
11335       <div class="tags">
11336
11337
11338         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11339
11340
11341       </div>
11342     </div>
11343     <div class="padding"></div>
11344
11345     <div class="entry">
11346       <div class="title">
11347         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
11348       </div>
11349       <div class="date">
11350         16th August 2012
11351       </div>
11352       <div class="body">
11353         <p>I dag fyller
11354 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
11355 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
11356 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
11357
11358       </div>
11359       <div class="tags">
11360
11361
11362         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
11363
11364
11365       </div>
11366     </div>
11367     <div class="padding"></div>
11368
11369     <div class="entry">
11370       <div class="title">
11371         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11372       </div>
11373       <div class="date">
11374         24th June 2012
11375       </div>
11376       <div class="body">
11377         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
11378 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
11379 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
11380 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
11381 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
11382 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
11383 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
11384 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
11385 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
11386 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
11387 missing in my book.</p>
11388
11389 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
11390 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
11391 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
11392 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
11393 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
11394 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
11395 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
11396
11397       </div>
11398       <div class="tags">
11399
11400
11401         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11402
11403
11404       </div>
11405     </div>
11406     <div class="padding"></div>
11407
11408     <div class="entry">
11409       <div class="title">
11410         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
11411       </div>
11412       <div class="date">
11413         21st November 2011
11414       </div>
11415       <div class="body">
11416         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
11417 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
11418 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
11419 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
11420 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
11421 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
11422 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
11423 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
11424 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
11425 the tools to do so.</p>
11426
11427 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
11428 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
11429 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
11430 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
11431
11432 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
11433 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
11434 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
11435 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
11436 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
11437 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
11438 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
11439 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
11440
11441 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
11442 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
11443 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
11444
11445 <p><pre>
11446 #!/usr/bin/perl
11447 use strict;
11448 use warnings;
11449 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
11450 BEGIN {
11451     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11452     my %rhelmodules = (
11453         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11454         );
11455     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11456         eval "use $module;";
11457         if ($@) {
11458             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11459             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11460             eval "use $module;";
11461         }
11462     }
11463 }
11464 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11465
11466 upgrade_dell();
11467
11468 exit 0;
11469
11470 sub run_firmware_script {
11471     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11472     unless ($script) {
11473         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11474         exit 1
11475     }
11476     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11477
11478     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11479         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11480     } else {
11481         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11482     }
11483 }
11484
11485 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11486     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11487     # Run firmware packages
11488     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11489         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11490         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11491         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11492             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11493             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11494         }
11495         closedir $dh;
11496     }
11497 }
11498
11499 sub download {
11500     my $url = shift;
11501     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11502     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11503 }
11504
11505 sub upgrade_dell {
11506     my @dirs;
11507     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11508     chomp $product;
11509
11510     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11511
11512         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11513         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11514
11515         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11516             CLEANUP => 1
11517             );
11518         chdir($tmpdir);
11519         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11520         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11521         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11522         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11523         my $fwopts = "-q";
11524         if (@paths) {
11525             for my $url (@paths) {
11526                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11527             }
11528             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11529         } else {
11530             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11531             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11532         }
11533         chdir('/');
11534     } else {
11535         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11536         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11537     }
11538 }
11539
11540 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11541     my $path = shift;
11542     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11543     download($url);
11544 }
11545
11546 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11547 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11548 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11549 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11550     my $filename = shift;
11551
11552     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11553     chomp $product;
11554     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11555
11556     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11557
11558     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11559     my @paths;
11560     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11561         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11562         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11563         my $oscode;
11564         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11565             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11566         } else {
11567             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11568         }
11569         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11570         {
11571             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11572         }
11573     }
11574     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11575         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11576
11577         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11578         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11579
11580         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11581         for my $path (@paths) {
11582             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11583                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11584             }
11585         }
11586     }
11587     return @paths;
11588 }
11589 </pre>
11590
11591 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11592 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11593 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11594 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11595 outdated.</p>
11596
11597       </div>
11598       <div class="tags">
11599
11600
11601         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11602
11603
11604       </div>
11605     </div>
11606     <div class="padding"></div>
11607
11608     <div class="entry">
11609       <div class="title">
11610         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
11611       </div>
11612       <div class="date">
11613          4th August 2011
11614       </div>
11615       <div class="body">
11616         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11617 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11618 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11619 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11620 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11621 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11622 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11623 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11624 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11625
11626 <p><blockquote>
11627 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11628 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11629 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11630 </blockquote></p>
11631
11632 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11633 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11634 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11635 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11636 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11637 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11638 hard to explain.</p>
11639
11640 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11641 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11642 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11643 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11644 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11645 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11646 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11647 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11648 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11649 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11650 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11651 mode).</p>
11652
11653 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11654 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11655 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11656 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11657 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11658 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11659 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11660 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11661 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11662
11663 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11664 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11665 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11666 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11667 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11668 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11669 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11670 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11671
11672 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11673 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11674 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11675
11676       </div>
11677       <div class="tags">
11678
11679
11680         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11681
11682
11683       </div>
11684     </div>
11685     <div class="padding"></div>
11686
11687     <div class="entry">
11688       <div class="title">
11689         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
11690       </div>
11691       <div class="date">
11692         30th July 2011
11693       </div>
11694       <div class="body">
11695         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11696 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11697 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11698 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11699 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11700 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11701 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11702 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11703 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11704 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11705 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11706 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11707 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11708
11709 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11710 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11711 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11712 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11713 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11714 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11715 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11716 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11717 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11718
11719 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11720 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11721 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11722 is presented.</p>
11723
11724 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11725 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11726 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11727 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11728 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11729 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11730 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11731 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11732 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11733 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11734 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11735 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11736 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11737 find time to push this forward.</p>
11738
11739       </div>
11740       <div class="tags">
11741
11742
11743         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11744
11745
11746       </div>
11747     </div>
11748     <div class="padding"></div>
11749
11750     <div class="entry">
11751       <div class="title">
11752         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
11753       </div>
11754       <div class="date">
11755         29th July 2011
11756       </div>
11757       <div class="body">
11758         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11759 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11760 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11761 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11762 issues.</p>
11763
11764 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11765 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11766 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11767
11768 <ol>
11769
11770 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11771 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11772 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11773 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11774 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11775 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11776 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11777 Debian.</li>
11778
11779 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11780 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11781 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11782 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11783 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11784 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11785 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11786 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11787 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11788 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11789 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11790 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11791 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11792
11793 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11794 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11795 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11796 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11797 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11798 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11799 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11800 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11801 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11802 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11803
11804 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11805 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11806 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11807 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11808 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11809 latter behaviour.</li>
11810
11811 </ol>
11812
11813 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11814 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11815 it do not matter much.</p>
11816
11817 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11818 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11819 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11820
11821       </div>
11822       <div class="tags">
11823
11824
11825         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
11826
11827
11828       </div>
11829     </div>
11830     <div class="padding"></div>
11831
11832     <div class="entry">
11833       <div class="title">
11834         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
11835       </div>
11836       <div class="date">
11837         26th July 2011
11838       </div>
11839       <div class="body">
11840         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11841 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11842 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11843 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11844 security support for a few years.</p>
11845
11846 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11847 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11848 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11849 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11850 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11851 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11852 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11853 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11854 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11855 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11856 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11857 easier in the future.</p>
11858
11859 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11860 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11861 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11862 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11863 do not have time for.</p>
11864
11865       </div>
11866       <div class="tags">
11867
11868
11869         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
11870
11871
11872       </div>
11873     </div>
11874     <div class="padding"></div>
11875
11876     <div class="entry">
11877       <div class="title">
11878         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
11879       </div>
11880       <div class="date">
11881          3rd April 2011
11882       </div>
11883       <div class="body">
11884         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11885 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11886 update in English.</p>
11887
11888 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11889 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11890 of the British service
11891 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11892 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11893 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11894 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11895 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11896 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11897 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11898 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11899 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11900 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11901 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11902 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11903 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11904
11905 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11906 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11907 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11908 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11909 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11910 public infrastructure.</p>
11911
11912 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11913 such service?</p>
11914
11915       </div>
11916       <div class="tags">
11917
11918
11919         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
11920
11921
11922       </div>
11923     </div>
11924     <div class="padding"></div>
11925
11926     <div class="entry">
11927       <div class="title">
11928         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
11929       </div>
11930       <div class="date">
11931         28th January 2011
11932       </div>
11933       <div class="body">
11934         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11935 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11936 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11937 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11938 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11939 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11940 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11941 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11942 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11943 out which security holes were present in our free software
11944 collection.</p>
11945
11946 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11947 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11948 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11949 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11950 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11951 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11952 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11953 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11954 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11955 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11956 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11957 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11958 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11959 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11960 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11961 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11962
11963 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11964 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11965 check out, one could look up
11966 <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
11967 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11968 The most recent one is
11969 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11970 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11971 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11972
11973 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11974 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11975 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11976 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11977 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11978 security issues out.</p>
11979
11980 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11981 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11982 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11983 RHEL is providing
11984 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11985 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11986 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11987
11988 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11989 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11990 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11991 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11992 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11993 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11994 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11995 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11996 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11997 established soon.</p>
11998
11999 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
12000 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
12001 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
12002 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
12003 for their packages.</p>
12004
12005       </div>
12006       <div class="tags">
12007
12008
12009         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12010
12011
12012       </div>
12013     </div>
12014     <div class="padding"></div>
12015
12016     <div class="entry">
12017       <div class="title">
12018         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
12019       </div>
12020       <div class="date">
12021         23rd January 2011
12022       </div>
12023       <div class="body">
12024         <p>In the
12025 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
12026 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
12027 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
12028 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
12029 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
12030 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
12031 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
12032 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
12033 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
12034 one of my machines like this:</p>
12035
12036 <pre>
12037 loaded modules:
12038 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
12039 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
12040 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
12041 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
12042 10de:03ec pata_amd
12043 10de:03f6 sata_nv
12044 1022:1103 k8temp
12045 109e:036e bttv
12046 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
12047 11ab:4364 sky2
12048 </pre>
12049
12050 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
12051 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
12052
12053 <pre>
12054 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
12055     echo loaded pci modules:
12056     (
12057         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
12058         for address in * ; do
12059             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12060                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12061                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12062                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12063                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
12064                     echo "$id $module"
12065                 fi
12066             fi
12067         done
12068     )
12069     echo
12070 fi
12071 </pre>
12072
12073 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
12074 mappings:</p>
12075
12076 <pre>
12077 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
12078     echo loaded usb modules:
12079     (
12080         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
12081         for address in * ; do
12082             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
12083                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
12084                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
12085                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
12086                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
12087                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
12088                         echo "$id $module"
12089                     fi
12090                 fi
12091             fi
12092         done
12093     )
12094     echo
12095 fi
12096 </pre>
12097
12098 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
12099 well.</p>
12100
12101       </div>
12102       <div class="tags">
12103
12104
12105         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12106
12107
12108       </div>
12109     </div>
12110     <div class="padding"></div>
12111
12112     <div class="entry">
12113       <div class="title">
12114         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
12115       </div>
12116       <div class="date">
12117         22nd December 2010
12118       </div>
12119       <div class="body">
12120         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
12121 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
12122 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
12123 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
12124 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
12125 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
12126 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
12127 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
12128 university.</p>
12129
12130 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
12131 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
12132 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
12133 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
12134 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
12135 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
12136 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
12137 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
12138
12139 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
12140 I perform on a new model.</p>
12141
12142 <ul>
12143
12144 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
12145 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
12146 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
12147
12148 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
12149 installation, X.org is working.</li>
12150
12151 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
12152 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
12153 reported by the program.</li>
12154
12155 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
12156 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
12157 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
12158 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
12159 normally test this by playing
12160 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
12161 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
12162
12163 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
12164 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12165
12166 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
12167 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12168
12169 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
12170 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
12171
12172 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
12173 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
12174 few.</li>
12175
12176 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
12177 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
12178 notice this.</li>
12179
12180 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
12181 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
12182 resume.</li>
12183
12184 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
12185 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
12186 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
12187 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
12188 not.</li>
12189
12190 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
12191 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
12192 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
12193 existence.</li>
12194
12195 </ul>
12196
12197 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
12198 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
12199 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
12200 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
12201 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
12202 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
12203 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
12204 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
12205
12206       </div>
12207       <div class="tags">
12208
12209
12210         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12211
12212
12213       </div>
12214     </div>
12215     <div class="padding"></div>
12216
12217     <div class="entry">
12218       <div class="title">
12219         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
12220       </div>
12221       <div class="date">
12222         11th December 2010
12223       </div>
12224       <div class="body">
12225         <p>As I continue to explore
12226 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
12227 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
12228 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
12229
12230 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
12231 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
12232 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
12233 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
12234 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
12235 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
12236 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
12237 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
12238 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
12239 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
12240 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
12241 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
12242 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
12243 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
12244 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
12245 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
12246 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
12247 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
12248 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
12249 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
12250
12251 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
12252 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
12253 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
12254 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
12255 If the Skolelinux foundation
12256 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
12257 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
12258 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
12259 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
12260 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
12261 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
12262 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
12263 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
12264
12265 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
12266 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
12267 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
12268 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
12269 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
12270 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
12271 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
12272 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
12273 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
12274 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
12275 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
12276 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
12277 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
12278 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
12279 currencies.</p>
12280
12281 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
12282 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
12283 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
12284 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
12285 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
12286 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
12287 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
12288 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
12289 BitCoins.  Check out
12290 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
12291 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
12292 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
12293 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
12294 yet.</p>
12295
12296 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
12297 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
12298 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
12299 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
12300 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
12301
12302       </div>
12303       <div class="tags">
12304
12305
12306         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12307
12308
12309       </div>
12310     </div>
12311     <div class="padding"></div>
12312
12313     <div class="entry">
12314       <div class="title">
12315         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
12316       </div>
12317       <div class="date">
12318         10th December 2010
12319       </div>
12320       <div class="body">
12321         <p>With this weeks lawless
12322 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
12323 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
12324 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
12325 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
12326 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
12327 A blog post from
12328 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
12329 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
12330 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
12331 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
12332 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
12333 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
12334 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
12335
12336 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
12337 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
12338 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
12339 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
12340 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
12341 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
12342 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
12343 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
12344 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
12345 Debian</a> soon.</p>
12346
12347 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
12348 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
12349 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
12350 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
12351 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
12352 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
12353 you can even get
12354 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
12355 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
12356 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
12357 on the current exchange rates.</p>
12358
12359 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
12360 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
12361 donations to the address
12362 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
12363
12364       </div>
12365       <div class="tags">
12366
12367
12368         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12369
12370
12371       </div>
12372     </div>
12373     <div class="padding"></div>
12374
12375     <div class="entry">
12376       <div class="title">
12377         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
12378       </div>
12379       <div class="date">
12380         27th November 2010
12381       </div>
12382       <div class="body">
12383         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
12384 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
12385 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
12386 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
12387 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
12388 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
12389 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
12390 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
12391
12392 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
12393 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12394 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
12395 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
12396 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
12397 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
12398 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
12399 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
12400 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
12401 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
12402 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
12403
12404 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
12405 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
12406 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
12407 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
12408 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
12409 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
12410 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
12411 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
12412 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
12413 what is going on.</p>
12414
12415       </div>
12416       <div class="tags">
12417
12418
12419         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
12420
12421
12422       </div>
12423     </div>
12424     <div class="padding"></div>
12425
12426     <div class="entry">
12427       <div class="title">
12428         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
12429       </div>
12430       <div class="date">
12431         22nd November 2010
12432       </div>
12433       <div class="body">
12434         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
12435 upgrade testing of the
12436 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12437 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
12438 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
12439 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
12440
12441 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12442
12443 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12444
12445 <blockquote><p>
12446   apache2.2-bin
12447   aptdaemon
12448   baobab
12449   binfmt-support
12450   browser-plugin-gnash
12451   cheese-common
12452   cli-common
12453   cups-pk-helper
12454   dmz-cursor-theme
12455   empathy
12456   empathy-common
12457   freedesktop-sound-theme
12458   freeglut3
12459   gconf-defaults-service
12460   gdm-themes
12461   gedit-plugins
12462   geoclue
12463   geoclue-hostip
12464   geoclue-localnet
12465   geoclue-manual
12466   geoclue-yahoo
12467   gnash
12468   gnash-common
12469   gnome
12470   gnome-backgrounds
12471   gnome-cards-data
12472   gnome-codec-install
12473   gnome-core
12474   gnome-desktop-environment
12475   gnome-disk-utility
12476   gnome-screenshot
12477   gnome-search-tool
12478   gnome-session-canberra
12479   gnome-system-log
12480   gnome-themes-extras
12481   gnome-themes-more
12482   gnome-user-share
12483   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12484   gstreamer0.10-tools
12485   gtk2-engines
12486   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12487   gtk2-engines-smooth
12488   hamster-applet
12489   libapache2-mod-dnssd
12490   libapr1
12491   libaprutil1
12492   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
12493   libaprutil1-ldap
12494   libart2.0-cil
12495   libboost-date-time1.42.0
12496   libboost-python1.42.0
12497   libboost-thread1.42.0
12498   libchamplain-0.4-0
12499   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
12500   libcheese-gtk18
12501   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12502   libcryptui0
12503   libdiscid0
12504   libelf1
12505   libepc-1.0-2
12506   libepc-common
12507   libepc-ui-1.0-2
12508   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12509   libfreerdp0
12510   libgconf2.0-cil
12511   libgdata-common
12512   libgdata7
12513   libgdu-gtk0
12514   libgee2
12515   libgeoclue0
12516   libgexiv2-0
12517   libgif4
12518   libglade2.0-cil
12519   libglib2.0-cil
12520   libgmime2.4-cil
12521   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12522   libgnome2.24-cil
12523   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
12524   libgpod-common
12525   libgpod4
12526   libgtk2.0-cil
12527   libgtkglext1
12528   libgtksourceview2.0-common
12529   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12530   libmono-addins0.2-cil
12531   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
12532   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12533   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
12534   libmono-posix2.0-cil
12535   libmono-security2.0-cil
12536   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12537   libmono-system2.0-cil
12538   libmtp8
12539   libmusicbrainz3-6
12540   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
12541   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
12542   libopal3.6.8
12543   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
12544   libpt2.6.7
12545   libpython2.6
12546   librpm1
12547   librpmio1
12548   libsdl1.2debian
12549   libsrtp0
12550   libssh-4
12551   libtelepathy-farsight0
12552   libtelepathy-glib0
12553   libtidy-0.99-0
12554   media-player-info
12555   mesa-utils
12556   mono-2.0-gac
12557   mono-gac
12558   mono-runtime
12559   nautilus-sendto
12560   nautilus-sendto-empathy
12561   p7zip-full
12562   pkg-config
12563   python-aptdaemon
12564   python-aptdaemon-gtk
12565   python-axiom
12566   python-beautifulsoup
12567   python-bugbuddy
12568   python-clientform
12569   python-coherence
12570   python-configobj
12571   python-crypto
12572   python-cupshelpers
12573   python-elementtree
12574   python-epsilon
12575   python-evolution
12576   python-feedparser
12577   python-gdata
12578   python-gdbm
12579   python-gst0.10
12580   python-gtkglext1
12581   python-gtksourceview2
12582   python-httplib2
12583   python-louie
12584   python-mako
12585   python-markupsafe
12586   python-mechanize
12587   python-nevow
12588   python-notify
12589   python-opengl
12590   python-openssl
12591   python-pam
12592   python-pkg-resources
12593   python-pyasn1
12594   python-pysqlite2
12595   python-rdflib
12596   python-serial
12597   python-tagpy
12598   python-twisted-bin
12599   python-twisted-conch
12600   python-twisted-core
12601   python-twisted-web
12602   python-utidylib
12603   python-webkit
12604   python-xdg
12605   python-zope.interface
12606   remmina
12607   remmina-plugin-data
12608   remmina-plugin-rdp
12609   remmina-plugin-vnc
12610   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12611   rhythmbox-plugins
12612   rpm-common
12613   rpm2cpio
12614   seahorse-plugins
12615   shotwell
12616   software-center
12617   system-config-printer-udev
12618   telepathy-gabble
12619   telepathy-mission-control-5
12620   telepathy-salut
12621   tomboy
12622   totem
12623   totem-coherence
12624   totem-mozilla
12625   totem-plugins
12626   transmission-common
12627   xdg-user-dirs
12628   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
12629   xserver-xephyr
12630 </p></blockquote>
12631
12632 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12633
12634 <blockquote><p>
12635   cheese
12636   ekiga
12637   eog
12638   epiphany-extensions
12639   evolution-exchange
12640   fast-user-switch-applet
12641   file-roller
12642   gcalctool
12643   gconf-editor
12644   gdm
12645   gedit
12646   gedit-common
12647   gnome-games
12648   gnome-games-data
12649   gnome-nettool
12650   gnome-system-tools
12651   gnome-themes
12652   gnuchess
12653   gucharmap
12654   guile-1.8-libs
12655   libavahi-ui0
12656   libdmx1
12657   libgalago3
12658   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12659   libgtksourceview2.0-0
12660   liblircclient0
12661   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
12662   libspeexdsp1
12663   libsvga1
12664   rhythmbox
12665   seahorse
12666   sound-juicer
12667   system-config-printer
12668   totem-common
12669   transmission-gtk
12670   vinagre
12671   vino
12672 </p></blockquote>
12673
12674 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12675
12676 <blockquote><p>
12677   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12678 </p></blockquote>
12679
12680 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12681
12682 <blockquote><p>
12683 [nothing]
12684 </p></blockquote>
12685
12686 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12687
12688 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12689
12690 <blockquote><p>
12691   ksmserver
12692 </p></blockquote>
12693
12694 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12695
12696 <blockquote><p>
12697   kwin
12698   network-manager-kde
12699 </p></blockquote>
12700
12701 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12702
12703 <blockquote><p>
12704   arts
12705   dolphin
12706   freespacenotifier
12707   google-gadgets-gst
12708   google-gadgets-xul
12709   kappfinder
12710   kcalc
12711   kcharselect
12712   kde-core
12713   kde-plasma-desktop
12714   kde-standard
12715   kde-window-manager
12716   kdeartwork
12717   kdeartwork-emoticons
12718   kdeartwork-style
12719   kdeartwork-theme-icon
12720   kdebase
12721   kdebase-apps
12722   kdebase-workspace
12723   kdebase-workspace-bin
12724   kdebase-workspace-data
12725   kdeeject
12726   kdelibs
12727   kdeplasma-addons
12728   kdeutils
12729   kdewallpapers
12730   kdf
12731   kfloppy
12732   kgpg
12733   khelpcenter4
12734   kinfocenter
12735   konq-plugins-l10n
12736   konqueror-nsplugins
12737   kscreensaver
12738   kscreensaver-xsavers
12739   ktimer
12740   kwrite
12741   libgle3
12742   libkde4-ruby1.8
12743   libkonq5
12744   libkonq5-templates
12745   libnetpbm10
12746   libplasma-ruby
12747   libplasma-ruby1.8
12748   libqt4-ruby1.8
12749   marble-data
12750   marble-plugins
12751   netpbm
12752   nuvola-icon-theme
12753   plasma-dataengines-workspace
12754   plasma-desktop
12755   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
12756   plasma-runners-addons
12757   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
12758   plasma-scriptengine-python
12759   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
12760   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
12761   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
12762   plasma-scriptengines
12763   plasma-wallpapers-addons
12764   plasma-widget-folderview
12765   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12766   ruby
12767   sweeper
12768   update-notifier-kde
12769   xscreensaver-data-extra
12770   xscreensaver-gl
12771   xscreensaver-gl-extra
12772   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12773 </p></blockquote>
12774
12775 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12776
12777 <blockquote><p>
12778   ark
12779   google-gadgets-common
12780   google-gadgets-qt
12781   htdig
12782   kate
12783   kdebase-bin
12784   kdebase-data
12785   kdepasswd
12786   kfind
12787   klipper
12788   konq-plugins
12789   konqueror
12790   ksysguard
12791   ksysguardd
12792   libarchive1
12793   libcln6
12794   libeet1
12795   libeina-svn-06
12796   libggadget-1.0-0b
12797   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12798   libgps19
12799   libkdecorations4
12800   libkephal4
12801   libkonq4
12802   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12803   libkscreensaver5
12804   libksgrd4
12805   libksignalplotter4
12806   libkunitconversion4
12807   libkwineffects1a
12808   libmarblewidget4
12809   libntrack-qt4-1
12810   libntrack0
12811   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12812   libplasmaclock4a
12813   libplasmagenericshell4
12814   libprocesscore4a
12815   libprocessui4a
12816   libqalculate5
12817   libqedje0a
12818   libqtruby4shared2
12819   libqzion0a
12820   libruby1.8
12821   libscim8c2a
12822   libsmokekdecore4-3
12823   libsmokekdeui4-3
12824   libsmokekfile3
12825   libsmokekhtml3
12826   libsmokekio3
12827   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12828   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12829   libsmokekparts3
12830   libsmokektexteditor3
12831   libsmokekutils3
12832   libsmokenepomuk3
12833   libsmokephonon3
12834   libsmokeplasma3
12835   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12836   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12837   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12838   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12839   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12840   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12841   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12842   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12843   libsmokeqttest4-3
12844   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12845   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12846   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12847   libsmokesolid3
12848   libsmokesoprano3
12849   libtaskmanager4a
12850   libtidy-0.99-0
12851   libweather-ion4a
12852   libxklavier16
12853   libxxf86misc1
12854   okteta
12855   oxygencursors
12856   plasma-dataengines-addons
12857   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12858   plasma-widget-lancelot
12859   plasma-widgets-addons
12860   plasma-widgets-workspace
12861   polkit-kde-1
12862   ruby1.8
12863   systemsettings
12864   update-notifier-common
12865 </p></blockquote>
12866
12867 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12868 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12869 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12870 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12871
12872       </div>
12873       <div class="tags">
12874
12875
12876         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12877
12878
12879       </div>
12880     </div>
12881     <div class="padding"></div>
12882
12883     <div class="entry">
12884       <div class="title">
12885         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
12886       </div>
12887       <div class="date">
12888         22nd November 2010
12889       </div>
12890       <div class="body">
12891         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12892 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12893 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12894 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12895 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12896 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12897 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12898 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12899 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12900
12901 <p>I found
12902 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12903 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12904 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12905 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12906 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12907 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12908
12909 <pre>
12910 #!/bin/sh
12911
12912 # Based on
12913 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12914
12915 set -e
12916 set -x
12917
12918 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12919     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12920     exit 1
12921 else
12922     host="$1"
12923 fi
12924
12925 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12926     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12927     exit 1
12928 fi
12929
12930 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12931 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12932 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12933 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12934
12935 img=$host.img
12936 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12937 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12938
12939 parted $img mklabel msdos
12940 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12941 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12942 parted $img set 1 boot on
12943
12944 modprobe dm-mod
12945 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12946 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12947
12948 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12949 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12950 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12951
12952 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12953 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12954 </pre>
12955
12956 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12957 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12958
12959 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12960 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12961 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12962 seem to work just fine.</p>
12963
12964       </div>
12965       <div class="tags">
12966
12967
12968         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12969
12970
12971       </div>
12972     </div>
12973     <div class="padding"></div>
12974
12975     <div class="entry">
12976       <div class="title">
12977         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
12978       </div>
12979       <div class="date">
12980         20th November 2010
12981       </div>
12982       <div class="body">
12983         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12984 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12985 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12986 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12987
12988 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12989 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12990 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12991
12992 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12993
12994 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12995
12996 <blockquote><p>
12997   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12998   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12999   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
13000   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
13001   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
13002   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
13003   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
13004   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
13005   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
13006   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
13007   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13008   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13009   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
13010   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
13011   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
13012   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
13013   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13014   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
13015   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13016   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
13017   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
13018   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13019   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
13020   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
13021   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
13022   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13023   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13024   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
13025   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13026   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
13027   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
13028   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13029   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
13030   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
13031   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
13032   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
13033   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
13034   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
13035   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
13036   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
13037   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
13038   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
13039   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
13040   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
13041   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
13042   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
13043   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
13044   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
13045   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
13046   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
13047   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
13048   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
13049   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13050   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
13051   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
13052   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
13053   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
13054   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
13055   zip
13056 </p></blockquote>
13057
13058 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
13059
13060 <blockquote><p>
13061   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
13062   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
13063   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
13064   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
13065   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
13066   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
13067   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
13068   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
13069   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
13070   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
13071   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
13072   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13073   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13074   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13075   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13076   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
13077   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13078   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
13079   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
13080   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
13081   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
13082   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
13083   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13084   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
13085   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
13086   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
13087   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
13088   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
13089   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
13090 </p></blockquote>
13091
13092 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13093
13094 <blockquote><p>
13095   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13096 </p></blockquote>
13097
13098 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13099
13100 <blockquote><p>
13101 [nothing]
13102 </p></blockquote>
13103
13104 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13105
13106 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13107
13108 <blockquote><p>
13109   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
13110   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13111   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
13112   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
13113   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
13114   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
13115   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13116   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
13117   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
13118   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13119   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
13120   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
13121   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
13122   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
13123   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
13124   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
13125   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
13126   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
13127   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
13128   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
13129   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
13130   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
13131   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
13132   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
13133   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
13134   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
13135   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
13136   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
13137   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
13138   ttf-sazanami-gothic
13139 </p></blockquote>
13140
13141 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13142
13143 <blockquote><p>
13144   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
13145   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
13146   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
13147   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
13148   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
13149   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
13150   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
13151   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
13152   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
13153   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
13154   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
13155   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
13156   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
13157   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
13158   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13159   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13160   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
13161   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
13162   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13163   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
13164   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13165   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
13166   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13167   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13168   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
13169   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
13170   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
13171   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
13172   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
13173   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
13174   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
13175   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
13176   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
13177 </p></blockquote>
13178
13179 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13180
13181 <blockquote><p>
13182   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
13183   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
13184   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
13185   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
13186   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13187   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
13188   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13189 </p></blockquote>
13190
13191 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13192
13193 <blockquote><p>
13194   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
13195 </p></blockquote>
13196
13197       </div>
13198       <div class="tags">
13199
13200
13201         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13202
13203
13204       </div>
13205     </div>
13206     <div class="padding"></div>
13207
13208     <div class="entry">
13209       <div class="title">
13210         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
13211       </div>
13212       <div class="date">
13213         20th November 2010
13214       </div>
13215       <div class="body">
13216         <p>Answering
13217 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
13218 call from the Gnash project</a> for
13219 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
13220 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
13221 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
13222 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
13223 releases out more often.</p>
13224
13225 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
13226 I have considered setting up a <a
13227 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
13228 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
13229 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
13230 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
13231 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
13232 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
13233 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
13234 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
13235 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
13236 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
13237 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
13238 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
13239
13240       </div>
13241       <div class="tags">
13242
13243
13244         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13245
13246
13247       </div>
13248     </div>
13249     <div class="padding"></div>
13250
13251     <div class="entry">
13252       <div class="title">
13253         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
13254       </div>
13255       <div class="date">
13256          9th November 2010
13257       </div>
13258       <div class="body">
13259         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
13260
13261 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
13262 3D linked in from
13263 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
13264 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
13265
13266       </div>
13267       <div class="tags">
13268
13269
13270         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13271
13272
13273       </div>
13274     </div>
13275     <div class="padding"></div>
13276
13277     <div class="entry">
13278       <div class="title">
13279         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
13280       </div>
13281       <div class="date">
13282         24th October 2010
13283       </div>
13284       <div class="body">
13285         <p>Some updates.</p>
13286
13287 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
13288 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
13289 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
13290 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
13291 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
13292 :)</p>
13293
13294 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
13295 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
13296 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
13297 It is called
13298 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
13299 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
13300 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
13301 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
13302 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
13303 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
13304
13305 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
13306 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
13307 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
13308 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
13309 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
13310 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
13311 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
13312 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
13313 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
13314 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
13315
13316       </div>
13317       <div class="tags">
13318
13319
13320         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
13321
13322
13323       </div>
13324     </div>
13325     <div class="padding"></div>
13326
13327     <div class="entry">
13328       <div class="title">
13329         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
13330       </div>
13331       <div class="date">
13332          4th September 2010
13333       </div>
13334       <div class="body">
13335         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
13336 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
13337 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
13338 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
13339 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
13340 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
13341 installed.</p>
13342
13343 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
13344 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
13345 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
13346 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
13347 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13348 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
13349 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
13350 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
13351 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
13352
13353 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
13354 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
13355 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
13356 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
13357 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
13358 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
13359 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
13360 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
13361 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
13362 pages they want to visit.</p>
13363
13364 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
13365 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
13366 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
13367 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
13368 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
13369 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
13370 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
13371 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
13372 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
13373 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
13374 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
13375
13376       </div>
13377       <div class="tags">
13378
13379
13380         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
13381
13382
13383       </div>
13384     </div>
13385     <div class="padding"></div>
13386
13387     <div class="entry">
13388       <div class="title">
13389         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
13390       </div>
13391       <div class="date">
13392         27th July 2010
13393       </div>
13394       <div class="body">
13395         <p>I discovered this while doing
13396 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
13397 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
13398 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
13399 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
13400 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
13401
13402 <p>An example is from todays
13403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
13404 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
13405 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
13406 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
13407 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
13408 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
13409 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
13410
13411 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
13412
13413 <blockquote><pre>
13414 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
13415  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
13416   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
13417 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
13418  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
13419 </pre></blockquote>
13420
13421 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
13422 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
13423 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
13424 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
13425 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
13426 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
13427 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
13428 of dependency loops.</p>
13429
13430 <p>Thanks to
13431 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
13432 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
13433 dependencies
13434 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
13435 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
13436
13437 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
13438 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
13439 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
13440 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
13441 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
13442 it.</p>
13443
13444       </div>
13445       <div class="tags">
13446
13447
13448         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13449
13450
13451       </div>
13452     </div>
13453     <div class="padding"></div>
13454
13455     <div class="entry">
13456       <div class="title">
13457         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
13458       </div>
13459       <div class="date">
13460         17th July 2010
13461       </div>
13462       <div class="body">
13463         <p>This is a
13464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
13465 on my
13466 <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
13467 work</a> on
13468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
13469 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
13470
13471 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
13472 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
13473 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
13474 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
13475
13476 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
13477 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
13478 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
13479
13480 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
13481
13482 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
13483 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
13484 the web.
13485
13486 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
13487 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
13488 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
13489 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
13490 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
13491 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
13492
13493 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
13494 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
13495 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
13496 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
13497 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
13498 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
13499 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
13500 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
13501 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
13502 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
13503 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
13504 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
13505 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
13506 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
13507 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
13508 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
13509
13510 <blockquote><pre>
13511 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13512   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13513   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13514   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13515   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13516   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13517   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13518
13519 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13520   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13521   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
13522   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
13523   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
13524   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
13525 </pre></blockquote>
13526
13527 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
13528 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
13529 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
13530 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13531 also exist.</p>
13532
13533 <blockquote><pre>
13534 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13535 objectclass: top
13536 objectclass: dnsdomain
13537 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13538 dc: tjener
13539 arecord: 10.0.2.2
13540 associateddomain: tjener.intern
13541
13542 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13543 objectclass: top
13544 objectclass: dnsdomain2
13545 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13546 dc: 2
13547 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
13548 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
13549 </pre></blockquote>
13550
13551 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
13552 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
13553 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
13554 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
13555 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
13556 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
13557 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
13558 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
13559 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
13560 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
13561 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
13562 instead.</p>
13563
13564 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
13565 like this:</p>
13566
13567 <blockquote><pre>
13568 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13569   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13570   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13571   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13572   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13573   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13574
13575 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13576   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
13577 </pre></blockquote>
13578
13579 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
13580 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
13581 reverse lookups.</p>
13582
13583 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
13584 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
13585 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
13586 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
13587
13588 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
13589 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
13590 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
13591
13592 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
13593 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
13594 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
13595 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
13596 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
13597
13598 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
13599 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
13600 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
13601 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
13602 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
13603
13604 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
13605 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
13606 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
13607 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
13608 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
13609 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
13610
13611 <blockquote><pre>
13612 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
13613     SUP top
13614     AUXILIARY
13615     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
13616           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
13617           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
13618           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
13619           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
13620     ))
13621 </pre></blockquote>
13622
13623 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
13624 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
13625 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
13626 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
13627 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
13628 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
13629
13630 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
13631
13632 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
13633 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
13634 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
13635 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
13636 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
13637
13638 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
13639 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
13640 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
13641 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
13642
13643 <blockquote><pre>
13644 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
13645 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
13646 </pre></blockquote>
13647
13648 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
13649 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
13650 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
13651 search result is this entry:</p>
13652
13653 <blockquote><pre>
13654 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13655 cn: dhcp
13656 objectClass: top
13657 objectClass: dhcpServer
13658 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13659 </pre></blockquote>
13660
13661 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
13662 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
13663 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
13664 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
13665 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
13666 The search result is this entry:</p>
13667
13668 <blockquote><pre>
13669 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13670 cn: DHCP Config
13671 objectClass: top
13672 objectClass: dhcpService
13673 objectClass: dhcpOptions
13674 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13675 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
13676 dhcpStatements: authoritative
13677 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
13678 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
13679 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
13680 </pre></blockquote>
13681
13682 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
13683 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
13684 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
13685 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
13686 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
13687 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
13688 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
13689 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
13690 related computer objects.</p>
13691
13692 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
13693 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
13694 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
13695 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
13696 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
13697 like:</p>
13698
13699 <blockquote><pre>
13700 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13701 cn: hostname
13702 objectClass: top
13703 objectClass: dhcpHost
13704 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13705 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
13706 </pre></blockquote>
13707
13708 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
13709 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
13710 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
13711 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
13712 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
13713 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
13714 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
13715 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
13716 structural object class.
13717
13718 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
13719
13720 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
13721 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
13722 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
13723 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
13724 in the configuration.</p>
13725
13726 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
13727 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
13728 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
13729 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
13730 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
13731 structure.</p>
13732
13733 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
13734 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
13735
13736 <blockquote><pre>
13737 ou=services
13738   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
13739     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
13740     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13741       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13742         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13743     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13744       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13745         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13746     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
13747       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
13748 </pre></blockquote>
13749
13750 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
13751 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
13752 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
13753 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
13754
13755 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
13756 like this:</p>
13757
13758 <blockquote><pre>
13759 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13760 dc: hostname
13761 objectClass: top
13762 objectClass: dhcpHost
13763 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13764 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
13765 associateddomain: hostname.intern
13766 arecord: 10.11.12.13
13767 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13768 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
13769 </pre></blockquote>
13770
13771 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
13772 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
13773 auxiliary object class.</p>
13774
13775       </div>
13776       <div class="tags">
13777
13778
13779         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13780
13781
13782       </div>
13783     </div>
13784     <div class="padding"></div>
13785
13786     <div class="entry">
13787       <div class="title">
13788         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
13789       </div>
13790       <div class="date">
13791         14th July 2010
13792       </div>
13793       <div class="body">
13794         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
13795 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
13796 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
13797 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
13798 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
13799
13800 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
13801 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
13802
13803 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
13804 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
13805 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
13806 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
13807 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
13808 to a slave DNS server.</p>
13809
13810 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
13811 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
13812 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
13813 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
13814 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
13815 seem to work.</p>
13816
13817 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
13818 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
13819 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
13820 this:</p>
13821
13822 <blockquote><pre>
13823   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13824   cn: hostname
13825   objectClass: dhcphost
13826   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13827   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
13828   associateddomain: hostname.intern
13829   arecord: 10.11.12.13
13830   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13831   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
13832   ldapconfigsound: Y
13833 </pre></blockquote>
13834
13835 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
13836 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
13837 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
13838 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
13839
13840 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
13841 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
13842 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
13843 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
13844 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
13845 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
13846 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
13847 might be a good place to put it.</p>
13848
13849 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13850 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13851
13852       </div>
13853       <div class="tags">
13854
13855
13856         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13857
13858
13859       </div>
13860     </div>
13861     <div class="padding"></div>
13862
13863     <div class="entry">
13864       <div class="title">
13865         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
13866       </div>
13867       <div class="date">
13868         11th July 2010
13869       </div>
13870       <div class="body">
13871         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
13872 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
13873 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
13874 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
13875
13876 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
13877 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
13878 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
13879 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
13880 LTSP clients.</p>
13881
13882 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
13883 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
13884 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
13885
13886 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
13887 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
13888 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
13889
13890 <blockquote><pre>
13891 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
13892 #
13893 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
13894 #
13895 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
13896 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
13897 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
13898 #
13899 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
13900 # existence of attribute names.
13901 #
13902 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
13903 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
13904 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
13905 #
13906 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
13907 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
13908 #
13909 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
13910 #     SUP top
13911 #     AUXILIARY
13912 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
13913
13914 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
13915 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
13916     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
13917     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
13918         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
13919         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
13920             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
13921             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
13922             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
13923             # bass value on to clients
13924             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
13925         done
13926     done
13927 fi
13928 </pre></blockquote>
13929
13930 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
13931 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
13932 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
13933 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
13934 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
13935
13936 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13937 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13938
13939 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
13940 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
13941 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
13942 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
13943 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
13944 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
13945
13946       </div>
13947       <div class="tags">
13948
13949
13950         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13951
13952
13953       </div>
13954     </div>
13955     <div class="padding"></div>
13956
13957     <div class="entry">
13958       <div class="title">
13959         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13960       </div>
13961       <div class="date">
13962          9th July 2010
13963       </div>
13964       <div class="body">
13965         <p>Since
13966 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
13967 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
13968 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
13969 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
13970 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
13971 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
13972 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
13973 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
13974 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
13975 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
13976 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
13977 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
13978 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
13979
13980       </div>
13981       <div class="tags">
13982
13983
13984         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13985
13986
13987       </div>
13988     </div>
13989     <div class="padding"></div>
13990
13991     <div class="entry">
13992       <div class="title">
13993         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
13994       </div>
13995       <div class="date">
13996          3rd July 2010
13997       </div>
13998       <div class="body">
13999         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
14000 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
14001 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
14002 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
14003 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
14004 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
14005 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
14006 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
14007
14008 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
14009 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
14010 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
14011 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
14012 publish the difference.</p>
14013
14014 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14015
14016 <blockquote><p>
14017   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14018   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
14019   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
14020   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
14021   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
14022   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14023   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
14024   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
14025 </p></blockquote>
14026
14027 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14028
14029 <blockquote><p>
14030   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
14031   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
14032   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
14033   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
14034   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
14035   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
14036   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
14037   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
14038   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14039   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14040   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
14041   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
14042   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
14043   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
14044   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
14045   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
14046   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
14047   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
14048   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
14049   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
14050 </p></blockquote>
14051
14052 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14053
14054 <blockquote><p>
14055   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
14056   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
14057   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14058   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14059   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
14060   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
14061   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
14062   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14063   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14064   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14065   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14066   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
14067   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
14068   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
14069   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
14070   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
14071   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
14072   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
14073   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
14074   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
14075   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
14076 </p></blockquote>
14077
14078 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14079
14080 <blockquote><p>
14081   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
14082   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
14083   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
14084 </p></blockquote>
14085
14086 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
14087 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
14088 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
14089 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
14090 the difference somewhat.
14091
14092       </div>
14093       <div class="tags">
14094
14095
14096         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14097
14098
14099       </div>
14100     </div>
14101     <div class="padding"></div>
14102
14103     <div class="entry">
14104       <div class="title">
14105         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14106       </div>
14107       <div class="date">
14108         28th June 2010
14109       </div>
14110       <div class="body">
14111         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
14112 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
14113 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
14114 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
14115 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
14116 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
14117 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
14118 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
14119 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
14120 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
14121
14122 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
14123 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
14124 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
14125 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
14126 released.</p>
14127
14128 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
14129 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
14130 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
14131 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
14132
14133 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
14134 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14135
14136 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
14137 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
14138 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
14139 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
14140 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
14141
14142       </div>
14143       <div class="tags">
14144
14145
14146         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14147
14148
14149       </div>
14150     </div>
14151     <div class="padding"></div>
14152
14153     <div class="entry">
14154       <div class="title">
14155         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
14156       </div>
14157       <div class="date">
14158         24th June 2010
14159       </div>
14160       <div class="body">
14161         <p>A while back, I
14162 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
14163 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
14164 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
14165 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
14166
14167 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
14168 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
14169 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
14170 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
14171
14172 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
14173 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
14174 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
14175 Debian Edu.</p>
14176
14177 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
14178 the
14179 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
14180 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
14181 available today from IETF.</p>
14182
14183 <pre>
14184 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
14185 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
14186 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
14187  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
14188         NAME 'dhcpHost'
14189         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
14190 -       SUP top
14191 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
14192         MUST cn
14193         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
14194         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
14195 </pre>
14196
14197 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
14198 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
14199 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
14200
14201 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14202 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14203
14204       </div>
14205       <div class="tags">
14206
14207
14208         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14209
14210
14211       </div>
14212     </div>
14213     <div class="padding"></div>
14214
14215     <div class="entry">
14216       <div class="title">
14217         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
14218       </div>
14219       <div class="date">
14220         16th June 2010
14221       </div>
14222       <div class="body">
14223         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
14224 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
14225 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
14226 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
14227 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
14228 this:
14229
14230 <blockquote><pre>
14231 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14232 tasksel --new-install
14233 </pre></blockquote>
14234
14235 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
14236 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
14237 any output what so ever.
14238
14239 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
14240 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
14241 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
14242 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
14243 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
14244 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
14245 code like this:
14246
14247 <blockquote><pre>
14248 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14249 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
14250 $cmd
14251 </pre></blockquote>
14252
14253 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
14254 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
14255 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
14256 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
14257 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
14258 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
14259 installation.</p>
14260
14261 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
14262 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
14263 like this.</p>
14264
14265       </div>
14266       <div class="tags">
14267
14268
14269         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14270
14271
14272       </div>
14273     </div>
14274     <div class="padding"></div>
14275
14276     <div class="entry">
14277       <div class="title">
14278         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
14279       </div>
14280       <div class="date">
14281         13th June 2010
14282       </div>
14283       <div class="body">
14284         <p>My
14285 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
14286 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
14287 finally made the upgrade logs available from
14288 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
14289 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
14290 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
14291 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
14292
14293 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
14294 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
14295 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
14296 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
14297 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
14298 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
14299 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
14300 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
14301
14302 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
14303 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
14304 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
14305 too surprising.</p>
14306
14307 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
14308 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
14309 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
14310 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
14311 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
14312 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
14313 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
14314 continue.</p>
14315
14316 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
14317 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
14318   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
14319   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
14320   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
14321   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
14322   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
14323   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14324   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14325   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14326   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14327   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14328   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14329   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14330   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14331   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14332   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14333   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14334   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14335   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14336   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14337   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14338   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14339   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14340   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14341   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14342   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14343   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14344   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
14345   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
14346
14347 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
14348
14349 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
14350   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
14351   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
14352   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
14353   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14354   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
14355   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
14356   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
14357   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
14358   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
14359   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14360   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
14361   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14362   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
14363   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
14364   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
14365   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
14366   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
14367   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
14368   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
14369   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
14370   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
14371   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
14372   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
14373   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14374   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
14375   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
14376   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
14377   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
14378   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14379   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14380   zip</p>
14381
14382 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
14383
14384 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
14385   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
14386   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
14387   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
14388   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
14389   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
14390   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14391   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14392   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14393   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14394   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14395   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14396   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14397   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14398   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14399   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14400   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14401   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14402   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14403   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14404   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14405   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14406   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14407   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14408   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14409   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14410   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14411   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
14412
14413 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
14414 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
14415   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
14416   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
14417   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
14418   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
14419   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
14420   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
14421   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
14422   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
14423   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
14424   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
14425   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
14426   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
14427   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
14428   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
14429   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
14430   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
14431   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
14432   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14433   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
14434   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
14435   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
14436   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
14437   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
14438   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
14439   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
14440   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
14441   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
14442   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
14443   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
14444   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
14445   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
14446   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
14447   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
14448   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14449   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14450   xulrunner-1.9</p>
14451
14452
14453       </div>
14454       <div class="tags">
14455
14456
14457         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14458
14459
14460       </div>
14461     </div>
14462     <div class="padding"></div>
14463
14464     <div class="entry">
14465       <div class="title">
14466         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
14467       </div>
14468       <div class="date">
14469         11th June 2010
14470       </div>
14471       <div class="body">
14472         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
14473 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
14474 have been discovered and reported in the process
14475 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
14476 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
14477 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
14478 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
14479 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
14480
14481 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
14482 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
14483 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
14484 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
14485 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
14486 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
14487
14488 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
14489 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
14490 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14491 is created.  The bug report
14492 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
14493 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
14494 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
14495 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
14496 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
14497 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
14498 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
14499 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
14500 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
14501 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
14502 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
14503 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
14504 Debian Squeeze.</p>
14505
14506 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
14507 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
14508 trick:</p>
14509
14510 <blockquote><pre>
14511 #!/bin/sh
14512 set -ex
14513
14514 if [ "$1" ] ; then
14515     desktop=$1
14516 else
14517     desktop=gnome
14518 fi
14519
14520 from=lenny
14521 to=squeeze
14522
14523 exec &lt; /dev/null
14524 unset LANG
14525 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
14526 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
14527 fuser -mv .
14528 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
14529 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14530 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
14531 #!/bin/sh
14532 exit 101
14533 EOF
14534 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
14535 exit_cleanup() {
14536     umount $tmpdir/proc
14537 }
14538 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
14539 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
14540 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
14541
14542 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
14543
14544 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
14545 # to return the correct answers.
14546 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
14547     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
14548
14549 # Include the desktop and laptop task
14550 for test in desktop laptop ; do
14551     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
14552 #!/bin/sh
14553 exit 2
14554 EOF
14555     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
14556 done
14557
14558 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14559 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
14560 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
14561 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
14562
14563 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
14564 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14565 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14566 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
14567 fuser -mv
14568 </pre></blockquote>
14569
14570 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
14571 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
14572 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
14573 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
14574 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
14575 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
14576
14577 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
14578 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
14579 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
14580 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
14581 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
14582 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
14583 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
14584
14585 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
14586 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
14587 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
14588 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
14589 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
14590 packages.</p>
14591
14592       </div>
14593       <div class="tags">
14594
14595
14596         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14597
14598
14599       </div>
14600     </div>
14601     <div class="padding"></div>
14602
14603     <div class="entry">
14604       <div class="title">
14605         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
14606       </div>
14607       <div class="date">
14608          6th June 2010
14609       </div>
14610       <div class="body">
14611         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
14612 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
14613 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
14614 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
14615 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
14616 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
14617 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
14618
14619 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
14620 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
14621 COLUMNS):</p>
14622
14623 <blockquote><pre>
14624 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
14625 previous=N
14626 PREVLEVEL=
14627 RUNLEVEL=
14628 runlevel=S
14629 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
14630 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
14631 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
14632 </pre></blockquote>
14633
14634 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
14635 script.</p>
14636
14637 <blockquote><pre>
14638 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
14639 previous=N
14640 PREVLEVEL=N
14641 RUNLEVEL=S
14642 runlevel=S
14643 </pre></blockquote>
14644
14645 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
14646 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
14647 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
14648
14649 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
14650 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
14651 choice.</p>
14652
14653       </div>
14654       <div class="tags">
14655
14656
14657         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14658
14659
14660       </div>
14661     </div>
14662     <div class="padding"></div>
14663
14664     <div class="entry">
14665       <div class="title">
14666         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
14667       </div>
14668       <div class="date">
14669          6th June 2010
14670       </div>
14671       <div class="body">
14672         <p>Via the
14673 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
14674 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
14675 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
14676 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
14677 following the standards wars of today.</p>
14678
14679       </div>
14680       <div class="tags">
14681
14682
14683         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
14684
14685
14686       </div>
14687     </div>
14688     <div class="padding"></div>
14689
14690     <div class="entry">
14691       <div class="title">
14692         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
14693       </div>
14694       <div class="date">
14695          3rd June 2010
14696       </div>
14697       <div class="body">
14698         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
14699 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
14700 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
14701 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
14702 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
14703
14704 <blockquote><pre>
14705 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
14706   vendor                    count
14707   Dell Computer Corporation     1
14708     PowerEdge 1750              1
14709   IBM                           1
14710     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
14711   Intel                         2
14712   [no-dmi-info]                 3
14713 maintainer:~#
14714 </pre></blockquote>
14715
14716 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
14717 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
14718 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
14719 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
14720 option to list the individual machines.</p>
14721
14722 <p>A larger list is
14723 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
14724 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
14725 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
14726 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
14727 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
14728 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
14729 collector.</p>
14730
14731       </div>
14732       <div class="tags">
14733
14734
14735         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14736
14737
14738       </div>
14739     </div>
14740     <div class="padding"></div>
14741
14742     <div class="entry">
14743       <div class="title">
14744         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
14745       </div>
14746       <div class="date">
14747          1st June 2010
14748       </div>
14749       <div class="body">
14750         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
14751 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
14752 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
14753 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
14754 wait.</p>
14755
14756 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
14757 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
14758 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
14759 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
14760 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
14761 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
14762
14763 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
14764 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
14765 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
14766 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
14767 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
14768 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
14769 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
14770 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
14771
14772 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
14773
14774       </div>
14775       <div class="tags">
14776
14777
14778         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14779
14780
14781       </div>
14782     </div>
14783     <div class="padding"></div>
14784
14785     <div class="entry">
14786       <div class="title">
14787         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
14788       </div>
14789       <div class="date">
14790         27th May 2010
14791       </div>
14792       <div class="body">
14793         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
14794 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
14795 issues are known and should be solved:
14796
14797 <p><ul>
14798
14799 <li>The wicd package seen to
14800 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
14801 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
14802 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
14803 seem to be on the case.</li>
14804
14805 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
14806 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
14807 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
14808 maintainer is on the case.</li>
14809
14810 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
14811 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
14812 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
14813 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
14814 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
14815 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
14816 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
14817 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
14818
14819 </ul></p>
14820
14821 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
14822 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
14823 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
14824 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
14825
14826 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14827 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14828 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14829 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14830
14831 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
14832
14833       </div>
14834       <div class="tags">
14835
14836
14837         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14838
14839
14840       </div>
14841     </div>
14842     <div class="padding"></div>
14843
14844     <div class="entry">
14845       <div class="title">
14846         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
14847       </div>
14848       <div class="date">
14849         22nd May 2010
14850       </div>
14851       <div class="body">
14852         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
14853 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
14854 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
14855 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
14856
14857 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
14858 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
14859 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
14860 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
14861 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
14862 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
14863 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
14864 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
14865 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
14866 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
14867 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
14868 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
14869 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
14870 going to work.</p>
14871
14872 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
14873 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
14874 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
14875 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
14876 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
14877 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
14878 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
14879 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
14880 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
14881 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
14882 Edu.</p>
14883
14884 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
14885 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
14886 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
14887 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
14888 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
14889 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
14890
14891 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
14892 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
14893
14894       </div>
14895       <div class="tags">
14896
14897
14898         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14899
14900
14901       </div>
14902     </div>
14903     <div class="padding"></div>
14904
14905     <div class="entry">
14906       <div class="title">
14907         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
14908       </div>
14909       <div class="date">
14910         14th May 2010
14911       </div>
14912       <div class="body">
14913         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
14914 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
14915 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
14916 expected, if I am to believe the
14917 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14918 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
14919 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
14920 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
14921 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
14922 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
14923 version.</p>
14924
14925 More information about
14926 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14927 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
14928 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
14929 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14930
14931 <blockquote><pre>
14932 CONCURRENCY=none
14933 </pre></blockquote>
14934
14935 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14936 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14937 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14938 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14939
14940       </div>
14941       <div class="tags">
14942
14943
14944         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14945
14946
14947       </div>
14948     </div>
14949     <div class="padding"></div>
14950
14951     <div class="entry">
14952       <div class="title">
14953         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
14954       </div>
14955       <div class="date">
14956         14th May 2010
14957       </div>
14958       <div class="body">
14959         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
14960 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
14961 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
14962 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
14963 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
14964 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
14965 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
14966 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
14967
14968 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
14969 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
14970 this on the collector host:</p>
14971
14972 <blockquote><pre>
14973 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
14974 </pre></blockquote>
14975
14976 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
14977 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
14978
14979 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
14980 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
14981 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
14982 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
14983 written yet.</p>
14984
14985       </div>
14986       <div class="tags">
14987
14988
14989         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14990
14991
14992       </div>
14993     </div>
14994     <div class="padding"></div>
14995
14996     <div class="entry">
14997       <div class="title">
14998         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
14999       </div>
15000       <div class="date">
15001         13th May 2010
15002       </div>
15003       <div class="body">
15004         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
15005 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
15006 has been
15007 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
15008
15009 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
15010 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
15011 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
15012 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
15013 based boot system.  Tollef is
15014 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
15015 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
15016 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
15017 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
15018 at the moment do not.</p>
15019
15020 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
15021 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
15022 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
15023 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
15024 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
15025 way forward.</p>
15026
15027 <p>In the mean time, based on the
15028 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
15029 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
15030 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
15031 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
15032 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
15033 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
15034 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
15035 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
15036
15037       </div>
15038       <div class="tags">
15039
15040
15041         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15042
15043
15044       </div>
15045     </div>
15046     <div class="padding"></div>
15047
15048     <div class="entry">
15049       <div class="title">
15050         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
15051       </div>
15052       <div class="date">
15053          6th May 2010
15054       </div>
15055       <div class="body">
15056         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
15057 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
15058 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
15059 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
15060 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15061 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
15062 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
15063
15064 <blockquote><pre>
15065 CONCURRENCY=makefile
15066 </pre></blockquote>
15067
15068 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
15069 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
15070 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
15071 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
15072 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
15073 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
15074 make this happen.</p>
15075
15076 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
15077 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
15078 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
15079 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
15080 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
15081
15082 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
15083 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
15084 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
15085 fix the remaining issues.</p>
15086
15087 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15088 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15089 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15090 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15091
15092       </div>
15093       <div class="tags">
15094
15095
15096         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15097
15098
15099       </div>
15100     </div>
15101     <div class="padding"></div>
15102
15103     <div class="entry">
15104       <div class="title">
15105         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
15106       </div>
15107       <div class="date">
15108         27th July 2009
15109       </div>
15110       <div class="body">
15111         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
15112 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
15113 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
15114 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
15115 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
15116 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
15117 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
15118
15119 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
15120 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
15121 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
15122
15123       </div>
15124       <div class="tags">
15125
15126
15127         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15128
15129
15130       </div>
15131     </div>
15132     <div class="padding"></div>
15133
15134     <div class="entry">
15135       <div class="title">
15136         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
15137       </div>
15138       <div class="date">
15139         22nd July 2009
15140       </div>
15141       <div class="body">
15142         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
15143 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
15144 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
15145 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
15146 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
15147 the package up to date.</p>
15148
15149 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
15150 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
15151 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
15152 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
15153 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
15154 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
15155 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
15156 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
15157 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
15158 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
15159 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
15160 working on the future release.</p>
15161
15162 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
15163 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
15164
15165       </div>
15166       <div class="tags">
15167
15168
15169         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15170
15171
15172       </div>
15173     </div>
15174     <div class="padding"></div>
15175
15176     <div class="entry">
15177       <div class="title">
15178         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
15179       </div>
15180       <div class="date">
15181         24th June 2009
15182       </div>
15183       <div class="body">
15184         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
15185 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
15186 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
15187 funded
15188 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
15189 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
15190 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
15191 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
15192 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
15193 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
15194
15195 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
15196 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
15197 boot:</p>
15198
15199 <ul>
15200
15201 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
15202
15203 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
15204    clock is in UTC.</li>
15205
15206 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
15207    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15208    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
15209
15210 </ul>
15211
15212 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
15213 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
15214 Villegas</a>.
15215
15216 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
15217 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
15218 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
15219 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
15220 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
15221 using this.</p>
15222
15223 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
15224 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
15225 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
15226 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
15227 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
15228 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
15229 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
15230
15231       </div>
15232       <div class="tags">
15233
15234
15235         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15236
15237
15238       </div>
15239     </div>
15240     <div class="padding"></div>
15241
15242     <div class="entry">
15243       <div class="title">
15244         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
15245       </div>
15246       <div class="date">
15247         17th May 2009
15248       </div>
15249       <div class="body">
15250         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
15251 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
15252 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
15253 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
15254 dager siden kom
15255 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
15256 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
15257 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
15258 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
15259 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
15260
15261 <blockquote>
15262 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
15263 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
15264 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
15265 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
15266 </blockquote>
15267
15268 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
15269 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
15270 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
15271 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
15272 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
15273
15274 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
15275 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
15276 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
15277
15278       </div>
15279       <div class="tags">
15280
15281
15282         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
15283
15284
15285       </div>
15286     </div>
15287     <div class="padding"></div>
15288
15289     <div class="entry">
15290       <div class="title">
15291         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
15292       </div>
15293       <div class="date">
15294          7th May 2009
15295       </div>
15296       <div class="body">
15297         <p>Kom over
15298 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
15299 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
15300 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
15301 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
15302 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
15303 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
15304 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
15305
15306       </div>
15307       <div class="tags">
15308
15309
15310         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15311
15312
15313       </div>
15314     </div>
15315     <div class="padding"></div>
15316
15317     <div class="entry">
15318       <div class="title">
15319         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
15320       </div>
15321       <div class="date">
15322          2nd May 2009
15323       </div>
15324       <div class="body">
15325         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
15326 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
15327 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
15328 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
15329 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
15330 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
15331 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
15332 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
15333 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
15334 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
15335 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
15336 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
15337 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
15338 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
15339 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
15340 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
15341 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
15342 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
15343 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
15344 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
15345
15346 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
15347 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
15348 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
15349 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
15350 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
15351 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
15352 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
15353 betydelige.</p>
15354
15355       </div>
15356       <div class="tags">
15357
15358
15359         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
15360
15361
15362       </div>
15363     </div>
15364     <div class="padding"></div>
15365
15366     <div class="entry">
15367       <div class="title">
15368         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
15369       </div>
15370       <div class="date">
15371          2nd May 2009
15372       </div>
15373       <div class="body">
15374         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
15375 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
15376 do not yet know them.</p>
15377
15378 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
15379 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
15380 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
15381 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
15382 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
15383 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
15384 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
15385 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
15386 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
15387 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
15388 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
15389
15390 <p>The second one is
15391 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
15392 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
15393 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
15394 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
15395 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
15396 and the company behind it is running
15397 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
15398 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
15399 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
15400 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
15401 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
15402 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
15403 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
15404 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
15405
15406 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
15407 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
15408 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
15409 surrounded by today.</p>
15410
15411       </div>
15412       <div class="tags">
15413
15414
15415         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15416
15417
15418       </div>
15419     </div>
15420     <div class="padding"></div>
15421
15422     <div class="entry">
15423       <div class="title">
15424         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
15425       </div>
15426       <div class="date">
15427         28th April 2009
15428       </div>
15429       <div class="body">
15430         <p>Julien Blache
15431 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
15432 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
15433 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
15434 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
15435 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
15436 properties.</p>
15437
15438       </div>
15439       <div class="tags">
15440
15441
15442         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15443
15444
15445       </div>
15446     </div>
15447     <div class="padding"></div>
15448
15449     <div class="entry">
15450       <div class="title">
15451         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
15452       </div>
15453       <div class="date">
15454         30th March 2009
15455       </div>
15456       <div class="body">
15457         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
15458 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
15459 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
15460 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
15461 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
15462 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
15463 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
15464 application.</p>
15465
15466 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
15467 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
15468 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
15469 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
15470 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
15471 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
15472 blocked from doing so.</p>
15473
15474 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
15475 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
15476 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
15477 requirements change.</p>
15478
15479 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
15480 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
15481 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
15482
15483       </div>
15484       <div class="tags">
15485
15486
15487         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
15488
15489
15490       </div>
15491     </div>
15492     <div class="padding"></div>
15493
15494     <div class="entry">
15495       <div class="title">
15496         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
15497       </div>
15498       <div class="date">
15499         29th March 2009
15500       </div>
15501       <div class="body">
15502         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
15503 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
15504 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
15505 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
15506 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
15507 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
15508 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
15509 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
15510 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
15511 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
15512 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
15513 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
15514 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
15515 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
15516 now. :)</p>
15517
15518       </div>
15519       <div class="tags">
15520
15521
15522         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15523
15524
15525       </div>
15526     </div>
15527     <div class="padding"></div>
15528
15529     <div class="entry">
15530       <div class="title">
15531         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
15532       </div>
15533       <div class="date">
15534         29th March 2009
15535       </div>
15536       <div class="body">
15537         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
15538 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
15539 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
15540 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
15541 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
15542 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
15543
15544 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
15545 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
15546 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
15547 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
15548 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
15549 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
15550 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
15551 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
15552 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
15553 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
15554 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
15555 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
15556 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
15557
15558 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
15559 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
15560 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
15561 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
15562
15563 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
15564 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
15565
15566 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
15567 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
15568 new IETF work group?</p>
15569
15570       </div>
15571       <div class="tags">
15572
15573
15574         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15575
15576
15577       </div>
15578     </div>
15579     <div class="padding"></div>
15580
15581     <div class="entry">
15582       <div class="title">
15583         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
15584       </div>
15585       <div class="date">
15586         15th February 2009
15587       </div>
15588       <div class="body">
15589         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
15590 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
15591 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
15592 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
15593 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
15594 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
15595 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
15596 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
15597 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
15598 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
15599 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
15600 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
15601
15602       </div>
15603       <div class="tags">
15604
15605
15606         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
15607
15608
15609       </div>
15610     </div>
15611     <div class="padding"></div>
15612
15613     <div class="entry">
15614       <div class="title">
15615         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
15616       </div>
15617       <div class="date">
15618          7th December 2008
15619       </div>
15620       <div class="body">
15621         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
15622 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
15623 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
15624 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
15625 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
15626 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
15627 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
15628 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
15629
15630 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
15631 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
15632 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
15633 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
15634 of these cards.</p>
15635
15636       </div>
15637       <div class="tags">
15638
15639
15640         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
15641
15642
15643       </div>
15644     </div>
15645     <div class="padding"></div>
15646
15647     <div class="entry">
15648       <div class="title">
15649         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
15650       </div>
15651       <div class="date">
15652         25th November 2008
15653       </div>
15654       <div class="body">
15655         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
15656 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
15657 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
15658 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
15659 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
15660 notes are available on
15661 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
15662 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
15663 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
15664 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
15665 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
15666 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
15667 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
15668 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
15669 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
15670
15671 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
15672 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
15673
15674       </div>
15675       <div class="tags">
15676
15677
15678         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
15679
15680
15681       </div>
15682     </div>
15683     <div class="padding"></div>
15684
15685     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
15686     <div id="sidebar">
15687
15688
15689
15690 <h2>Archive</h2>
15691 <ul>
15692
15693 <li>2023
15694 <ul>
15695
15696 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15697
15698 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15699
15700 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15701
15702 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15703
15704 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/06/">June (1)</a></li>
15705
15706 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15707
15708 </ul></li>
15709
15710 <li>2022
15711 <ul>
15712
15713 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15714
15715 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15716
15717 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15718
15719 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15720
15721 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15722
15723 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15724
15725 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15726
15727 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15728
15729 </ul></li>
15730
15731 <li>2021
15732 <ul>
15733
15734 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15735
15736 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15737
15738 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15739
15740 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/06/">June (1)</a></li>
15741
15742 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/07/">July (3)</a></li>
15743
15744 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15745
15746 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15747
15748 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15749
15750 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15751
15752 </ul></li>
15753
15754 <li>2020
15755 <ul>
15756
15757 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15758
15759 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/03/">March (2)</a></li>
15760
15761 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15762
15763 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15764
15765 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15766
15767 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15768
15769 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15770
15771 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15772
15773 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15774
15775 </ul></li>
15776
15777 <li>2019
15778 <ul>
15779
15780 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15781
15782 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15783
15784 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15785
15786 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/05/">May (2)</a></li>
15787
15788 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15789
15790 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15791
15792 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15793
15794 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15795
15796 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15797
15798 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15799
15800 </ul></li>
15801
15802 <li>2018
15803 <ul>
15804
15805 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
15806
15807 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
15808
15809 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15810
15811 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15812
15813 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15814
15815 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/07/">July (5)</a></li>
15816
15817 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15818
15819 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15820
15821 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15822
15823 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/11/">November (2)</a></li>
15824
15825 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15826
15827 </ul></li>
15828
15829 <li>2017
15830 <ul>
15831
15832 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15833
15834 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15835
15836 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15837
15838 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15839
15840 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15841
15842 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15843
15844 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15845
15846 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15847
15848 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15849
15850 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15851
15852 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15853
15854 </ul></li>
15855
15856 <li>2016
15857 <ul>
15858
15859 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15860
15861 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15862
15863 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15864
15865 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
15866
15867 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
15868
15869 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15870
15871 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15872
15873 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
15874
15875 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15876
15877 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
15878
15879 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
15880
15881 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15882
15883 </ul></li>
15884
15885 <li>2015
15886 <ul>
15887
15888 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15889
15890 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15891
15892 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
15893
15894 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
15895
15896 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15897
15898 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
15899
15900 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
15901
15902 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15903
15904 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15905
15906 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15907
15908 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
15909
15910 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15911
15912 </ul></li>
15913
15914 <li>2014
15915 <ul>
15916
15917 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15918
15919 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15920
15921 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
15922
15923 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15924
15925 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15926
15927 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15928
15929 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15930
15931 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15932
15933 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15934
15935 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
15936
15937 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15938
15939 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15940
15941 </ul></li>
15942
15943 <li>2013
15944 <ul>
15945
15946 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
15947
15948 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
15949
15950 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
15951
15952 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
15953
15954 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15955
15956 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
15957
15958 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15959
15960 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15961
15962 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15963
15964 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
15965
15966 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
15967
15968 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15969
15970 </ul></li>
15971
15972 <li>2012
15973 <ul>
15974
15975 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15976
15977 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
15978
15979 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
15980
15981 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
15982
15983 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
15984
15985 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
15986
15987 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
15988
15989 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15990
15991 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
15992
15993 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
15994
15995 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
15996
15997 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15998
15999 </ul></li>
16000
16001 <li>2011
16002 <ul>
16003
16004 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
16005
16006 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
16007
16008 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
16009
16010 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
16011
16012 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
16013
16014 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
16015
16016 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
16017
16018 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
16019
16020 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
16021
16022 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
16023
16024 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
16025
16026 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
16027
16028 </ul></li>
16029
16030 <li>2010
16031 <ul>
16032
16033 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
16034
16035 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
16036
16037 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
16038
16039 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
16040
16041 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
16042
16043 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
16044
16045 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
16046
16047 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
16048
16049 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
16050
16051 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
16052
16053 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
16054
16055 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
16056
16057 </ul></li>
16058
16059 <li>2009
16060 <ul>
16061
16062 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
16063
16064 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
16065
16066 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
16067
16068 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
16069
16070 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
16071
16072 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
16073
16074 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
16075
16076 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
16077
16078 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
16079
16080 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
16081
16082 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
16083
16084 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
16085
16086 </ul></li>
16087
16088 <li>2008
16089 <ul>
16090
16091 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
16092
16093 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
16094
16095 </ul></li>
16096
16097 </ul>
16098
16099
16100
16101 <h2>Tags</h2>
16102 <ul>
16103
16104  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (19)</a></li>
16105
16106  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
16107
16108  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
16109
16110  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
16111
16112  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/betalkontant">betalkontant (9)</a></li>
16113
16114  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (12)</a></li>
16115
16116  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
16117
16118  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
16119
16120  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
16121
16122  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (194)</a></li>
16123
16124  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (159)</a></li>
16125
16126  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (9)</a></li>
16127
16128  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (11)</a></li>
16129
16130  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (18)</a></li>
16131
16132  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (30)</a></li>
16133
16134  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
16135
16136  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (451)</a></li>
16137
16138  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
16139
16140  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (14)</a></li>
16141
16142  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (34)</a></li>
16143
16144  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
16145
16146  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (20)</a></li>
16147
16148  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
16149
16150  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (43)</a></li>
16151
16152  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (16)</a></li>
16153
16154  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (23)</a></li>
16155
16156  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi (6)</a></li>
16157
16158  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
16159
16160  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (5)</a></li>
16161
16162  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
16163
16164  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc (5)</a></li>
16165
16166  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
16167
16168  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
16169
16170  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/madewithcc">madewithcc (3)</a></li>
16171
16172  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
16173
16174  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (46)</a></li>
16175
16176  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (15)</a></li>
16177
16178  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5 (23)</a></li>
16179
16180  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (320)</a></li>
16181
16182  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (198)</a></li>
16183
16184  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (40)</a></li>
16185
16186  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
16187
16188  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opensnitch">opensnitch (4)</a></li>
16189
16190  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (75)</a></li>
16191
16192  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (114)</a></li>
16193
16194  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
16195
16196  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
16197
16198  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
16199
16200  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
16201
16202  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (17)</a></li>
16203
16204  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
16205
16206  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (7)</a></li>
16207
16208  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
16209
16210  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (59)</a></li>
16211
16212  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
16213
16214  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
16215
16216  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (74)</a></li>
16217
16218  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (7)</a></li>
16219
16220  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (14)</a></li>
16221
16222  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (64)</a></li>
16223
16224  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (5)</a></li>
16225
16226  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
16227
16228  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
16229
16230  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (20)</a></li>
16231
16232  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (79)</a></li>
16233
16234  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
16235
16236  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (42)</a></li>
16237
16238 </ul>
16239
16240
16241     </div>
16242     <p style="text-align: right">
16243  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
16244 </p>
16245
16246   </body>
16247 </html>