1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Brushing up on old packages in Xiph and Debian
</title>
11 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
28 Feb
2025 16:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Since my motivation boost in the beginning of the month caused me
15 to wrap up a new release of
16 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/oggz/
">liboggz
</a
></tt
>, I have used the
17 same boost to wrap up new editions of
18 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/fishsound/
">libfishsound
</a
></tt
>,
19 <tt
><a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggplay/
">liboggplay
</a
></tt
>
21 <tt
><a href=
"https://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/OggKate
">libkate
</a
></tt
>
22 too. These have been tagged in upstream git, but not yet published on
23 the Xiph download location. I am waiting for someone with access to
24 have time to move the tarballs there, I hope it will happen in a few
25 days. The same is the case for a minor update of liboggz too.
</p
>
27 <p
>As I was looking at Xiph packages lacking updates, it occurred to
28 me that there are packages in Debian that have not received a new
29 upload in a long time. Looking for a way to identify them, I came
30 across the
<tt
>ltnu
</tt
> script from the
31 <tt
><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/devscripts
">devscripts
</a
></tt
>
32 package. It can sort by last update, packages maintained by a single
33 user/group, and is useful to figure out which packages a single
34 maintainer should have a look at. But I wanted a archive wide
35 summary. Based on the
<a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/
">UDD
</a
> SQL
36 query used by ltnu, I ended up with the following command:
</p
>
40 env PGPASSWORD=udd-mirror psql --host=udd-mirror.debian.net --user=udd-mirror udd --command=
"
45 where distribution=
'unstable
' and
46 source in (select source
48 where release=
'sid
')
50 order by max(date) asc
54 <p
>This will sort all source packages in Debian by upload date, and
55 list the
50 oldest ones. The end result is a list of packages I
56 suspect could use some attention:
</p
>
59 source | ver | uploaded
60 -----------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------
61 xserver-xorg-video-ivtvdev |
1.1.2-
1 |
2011-
02-
09 22:
26:
27+
00
62 dynamite |
0.1.1-
2 |
2011-
04-
30 16:
47:
20+
00
63 xkbind |
2010.05.20-
1 |
2011-
05-
02 22:
48:
05+
00
64 libspctag |
0.2-
1 |
2011-
09-
22 18:
47:
07+
00
65 gromit |
20041213-
9 |
2011-
11-
13 21:
02:
56+
00
66 s3switch |
0.1-
1 |
2011-
11-
22 15:
47:
40+
00
67 cd5 |
0.1-
3 |
2011-
12-
07 21:
19:
05+
00
68 xserver-xorg-video-glide |
1.2.0-
1 |
2011-
12-
30 16:
50:
48+
00
69 blahtexml |
0.9-
1.1 |
2012-
04-
25 11:
32:
11+
00
70 aggregate |
1.6-
7 |
2012-
05-
01 00:
47:
11+
00
71 rtfilter |
1.1-
4 |
2012-
05-
11 12:
50:
00+
00
72 sic |
1.1-
5 |
2012-
05-
11 19:
10:
31+
00
73 kbdd |
0.6-
4 |
2012-
05-
12 07:
33:
32+
00
74 logtop |
0.4.3-
1 |
2012-
06-
05 23:
04:
20+
00
75 gbemol |
0.3.2-
2 |
2012-
06-
26 17:
03:
11+
00
76 pidgin-mra |
20100304-
1 |
2012-
06-
29 23:
07:
41+
00
77 mumudvb |
1.7.1-
1 |
2012-
06-
30 09:
12:
14+
00
78 libdr-sundown-perl |
0.02-
1 |
2012-
08-
18 10:
00:
07+
00
79 ztex-bmp |
20120314-
2 |
2012-
08-
18 19:
47:
55+
00
80 display-dhammapada |
1.0-
0.1 |
2012-
12-
19 12:
02:
32+
00
81 eot-utils |
1.1-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
28+
00
82 multiwatch |
1.0.0-rc1+really1.0
.0-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
35+
00
83 pidgin-latex |
1.5.0-
1 |
2013-
04-
04 15:
03:
43+
00
84 libkeepalive |
0.2-
1 |
2013-
04-
08 22:
00:
07+
00
85 dfu-programmer |
0.6.1-
1 |
2013-
04-
23 13:
32:
32+
00
86 libb64 |
1.2-
3 |
2013-
05-
05 21:
04:
51+
00
87 i810switch |
0.6.5-
7.1 |
2013-
05-
10 13:
03:
18+
00
88 premake4 |
4.3+repack1-
2 |
2013-
05-
31 12:
48:
51+
00
89 unagi |
0.3.4-
1 |
2013-
06-
05 11:
19:
32+
00
90 mod-vhost-ldap |
2.4.0-
1 |
2013-
07-
12 07:
19:
00+
00
91 libapache2-mod-ldap-userdir |
1.1.19-
2.1 |
2013-
07-
12 21:
22:
48+
00
92 w9wm |
0.4.2-
8 |
2013-
07-
18 11:
49:
10+
00
93 vish |
0.0.20130812-
1 |
2013-
08-
12 21:
10:
37+
00
94 xfishtank |
2.5-
1 |
2013-
08-
20 17:
34:
06+
00
95 wap-wml-tools |
0.0.4-
7 |
2013-
08-
21 16:
19:
10+
00
96 ttysnoop |
0.12d-
6 |
2013-
08-
24 17:
33:
09+
00
97 libkaz |
1.21-
2 |
2013-
09-
02 16:
00:
10+
00
98 rarpd |
0.981107-
9 |
2013-
09-
02 19:
48:
24+
00
99 libimager-qrcode-perl |
0.033-
1.2 |
2013-
09-
04 21:
06:
31+
00
100 dov4l |
0.9+repack-
1 |
2013-
09-
22 19:
33:
25+
00
101 textdraw |
0.2+ds-
0+nmu1 |
2013-
10-
07 21:
25:
03+
00
102 gzrt |
0.8-
1 |
2013-
10-
08 06:
33:
13+
00
103 away |
0.9.5+ds-
0+nmu2 |
2013-
10-
25 01:
18:
18+
00
104 jshon |
20131010-
1 |
2013-
11-
30 00:
00:
11+
00
105 libstar-parser-perl |
0.59-
4 |
2013-
12-
23 21:
50:
43+
00
106 gcal |
3.6.3-
3 |
2013-
12-
29 18:
33:
29+
00
107 fonts-larabie |
1:
20011216-
5 |
2014-
01-
02 21:
20:
49+
00
108 ccd2iso |
0.3-
4 |
2014-
01-
28 06:
33:
35+
00
109 kerneltop |
0.91-
1 |
2014-
02-
04 12:
03:
30+
00
110 vera++ |
1.2.1-
2 |
2014-
02-
04 21:
21:
37+
00
114 <p
>So there are
8 packages last uploaded to unstable in
2011,
12
115 packages in
2012 and
26 packages in
2013. I suspect their maintainers
116 need help and we should all offer our assistance. I already contacted
117 two of them and hope the rest of the Debian community will chip in to
118 help too. We should ensure any Debian specific patches are passed
119 upstream if they still exist, that the package is brought up to speed
120 with the latest Debian policy, as well as ensure the source can built
121 with the current compiler set in Debian.
</p
>
123 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
124 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
125 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
130 <title>Some of my
2024 free software activities
</title>
131 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</link>
132 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</guid>
133 <pubDate>Mon,
10 Feb
2025 09:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
134 <description><p
>It is a while since I posted a summary of the free software and
135 open culture activities and projects I have worked on. Here is a
136 quick summary of the major ones from last year.
</p
>
138 <p
>I guess the biggest project of the year has been migrating orphaned
139 packages in Debian without a version control system to have a git
140 repository on salsa.debian.org. When I started in April around
450
141 the orphaned packages needed git. I
've since migrated around
250 of
142 the packages to a salsa git repository, and around
40 packages were
143 left when I took a break. Not sure who did the around
160 conversions
144 I was not involved in, but I am very glad I got some help on the
145 project. I stopped partly because some of the remaining packages
146 needed more disk space to build than I have available on my
147 development machine, and partly because some had a strange build setup
148 I could not figure out. I had a time budget of
20 minutes per
149 package, if the package proved problematic and likely to take longer,
150 I moved to another package. Might continue later, if I manage to free
151 up some disk space.
</p
>
153 <p
>Another rather big project was the translation to Norwegian Bokmål
154 and publishing of the first book ever published by a Sámi woman, the
155 «
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/#infoerlifellerdoed2024
">Møter
156 vi liv eller død?
</a
>» book by Elsa Laula, with a PD0 and CC-BY
157 license. I released it during the summer, and to my surprise it has
158 already sold several copies. As I suck at marketing, I did not expect
159 to sell any.
</p
>
161 <p
>A smaller, but more long term project (for more than
10 years now),
162 and related to orphaned packages in Debian, is my project to ensure a
163 simple way to install hardware related packages in Debian when the
164 relevant hardware is present in a machine. It made a fairly big
165 advance forward last year, partly because I have been poking and
166 begging package maintainers and upstream developers to include
167 AppStream metadata XML in their packages. I
've also released a few
168 new versions of the isenkram system with some robustness improvements.
169 Today
127 packages in Debian provide such information, allowing
170 <tt
>isenkram-lookup
</tt
> to propose them. Will keep pushing until the
171 around
35 package names currently hard coded in the isenkram package
172 are down to zero, so only information provided by individual packages
173 are used for this feature.
</p
>
175 <p
>As part of the work on AppStream, I have sponsored several packages
176 into Debian where the maintainer wanted to fix the issue but lacked
177 direct upload rights. I
've also sponsored a few other packages, when
178 approached by the maintainer.
</p
>
180 <p
>I would also like to mention two hardware related packages in
181 particular where I have been involved, the megactl and mfi-util
182 packages. Both work with the hardware RAID systems in several Dell
183 PowerEdge servers, and the first one is already available in Debian
184 (and of course, proposed by isenkram when used on the appropriate Dell
185 server), the other is waiting for NEW processing since this autumn. I
186 manage several such Dell servers and would like the tools needed to
187 monitor and configure these RAID controllers to be available from
188 within Debian out of the box.
</p
>
190 <p
>Vaguely related to hardware support in Debian, I have also been
191 trying to find ways to help out the Debian ROCm team, to improve the
192 support in Debian for my artificial idiocy (AI) compute node. So far
193 only uploaded one package, helped test the initial packaging of
194 llama.cpp and tried to figure out how to get good speech recognition
195 like Whisper into Debian.
<p
>
197 <p
>I am still involved in the LinuxCNC project, and organised a
198 developer gathering in Norway last summer. A new one is planned the
199 summer of
2025. I
've also helped evaluate patches and uploaded new
200 versions of LinuxCNC into Debian.
</p
>
202 <p
>After a
10 years long break, we managed to get a new and improved
203 upstream version of
<tt
>lsdvd
</tt
> released just before Christmas. As
204 I use it regularly to maintain my DVD archive, I was very happy to
205 finally get out a version supporting DVDDiscID useful for uniquely
206 identifying DVDs. I am dreaming of a Internet service mapping DVD IDs
207 to IMDB movie IDs, to make life as a DVD collector easier.
</p
>
209 <p
>My involvement in Norwegian archive standardisation and the free
210 software implementation of the vendor neutral Noark
5 API continued
211 for the entire year. I
've been pushing patches into both the API and
212 the test code for the API, participated in several editorial meetings
213 regarding the Noark
5 Tjenestegrensesnitt specification, submitted
214 several proposals for improvements for the same. We also organised a
215 small seminar for Noark
5 interested people, and is organising a new
216 seminar in a month.
</p
>
218 <p
>Part of the year was spent working on and coordinating a Norwegian
219 Bokmål translation of the marvellous children
's book
220 «
<a href=
"https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
">Ada and
221 Zangemann
<a
>», which focus on the right to repair and control your own
222 property, and the value of controlling the software on the devices you
223 own. The translation is mostly complete, and is now waiting for a
224 transformation of the project and manuscript to use Docbook XML
225 instead of a home made semi-text based format. Great progress is
226 being made and the new book build process is almost complete.
</p
>
228 <p
>I have also been looking at how to companies in Norway can use free
229 software to report their accounting summaries to the Norwegian
230 government. Several new regulations make it very hard for companies
231 to do use free software for accounting, and I would like to change
232 this. Found a few drafts for opening up the reporting process, and
233 have read up on some of the specifications, but nothing much is
234 working yet.
</p
>
236 <p
>These were just the top of the iceberg, but I guess this blog post
237 is long enough now. If you would like to help with any of these
238 projects, please get in touch, either directly on the project mailing
239 lists and forums, or with me via email, IRC or Signal. :)
</p
>
241 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
242 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
243 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
248 <title>New oggz release
1.1.2 after
15 years
</title>
249 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</link>
250 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</guid>
251 <pubDate>Sun,
9 Feb
2025 01:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
252 <description><p
>A little over a week ago, I noticed
253 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/liboggz
">the liboggz
254 package
</a
> on my Debian dashboard had not had a new upstream release
255 for a while. A closer look showed that its last release, version
256 1.1.1, happened in
2010. A few patches had accumulated in the Debian
257 package, and I even noticed that I had passed on these patches to
258 upstream five years ago. A handful crash bugs had been reported
259 against the Debian package, and looking at the upstream repository I
260 even found a few crash bugs reported there too. To add insult to
261 injury, I discovered that upstream had accumulated several fixes in the
262 years between
2010 and now, and many of them had not made their way
263 into the Debian package. I decided enough was enough, and that a new
264 upstream release was needed fixing these nasty crash bugs. Luckily I
265 am also a member of the Xiph team, aka upstream, and could actually go
266 to work immediately to fix it.
</p
>
268 <p
>I started by adding automatic build testing on
269 <a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggz
">the Xiph gitlab oggz
270 instance
</a
>, to get a better idea of the state of affairs with the
271 code base. This exposed a few build problems, which I had to fix. In
272 parallel to this, I sent an email announcing my wish for a new release
273 to every person who had committed to the upstream code base since
274 2010, and asked for help doing a new release both on email and on the
275 #xiph IRC channel. Sadly only a fraction of their email providers
276 accepted my email. But Ralph Giles in the Xiph team came to the
277 rescue and provided invaluable help to guide be through the release
278 Xiph process. While this was going on, I spent a few days tracking
279 down the crash bugs with good help from
280 <a href=
"https://www.valgrind.org/
">valgrind
</a
>, and came up with
281 patch proposals to get rid of at least these specific crash bugs. The
282 open issues also had to be checked. Several of them proved to be
283 fixed already, but a few I had to creat patches for. I also checked
284 out the Debian, Arch, Fedora, Suse and Gentoo packages to see if there
285 were patches applied in these Linux distributions that should be
286 passed upstream. The end result was ready yesterday. A new liboggz
287 release, version
1.1.2, was tagged, wrapped up and published on the
288 project page. And today, the new release was uploaded into
291 <p
>You are probably by now curious on what actually changed in the
292 library. I guess the most interesting new feature was support for
293 Opus and VP8. Almost all other changes were stability or
294 documentation fixes. The rest were related to the gitlab continuous
295 integration testing. All in all, this was really a minor update,
296 hence the version bump only from
1.1.1 to to
1.1.2, but it was long
297 overdue and I am very happy that it is out the door.
</p
>
299 <p
>One change proposed upstream was not included this time, as it
300 extended the API and changed some of the existing library methods, and
301 thus require a major SONAME bump and possibly code changes in every
302 program using the library. As I am not that familiar with the code
303 base, I am unsure if I am the right person to evaluate the change.
304 Perhaps later.
</p
>
306 <p
>Since the release was tagged, a few minor fixes has been committed
307 upstream already: automatic testing the cross building to Windows, and
308 documentation updates linking to the correct project page. If a
309 important issue is discovered with this release, I guess a new release
310 might happen soon including the minor fixes. If not, perhaps they can
311 wait fifteen years. :)
</p
>
313 <p
>I would like to send a big thank you to everyone that helped make
314 this release happen, from the people adding fixes upstream over the
315 course of fifteen years, to the ones reporting crash bugs, other bugs
316 and those maintaining the package in various Linux distributions.
317 Thank you very much for your time and interest.
</p
>
319 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
320 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
321 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
326 <title>Frokostseminar om Noark
5 i Oslo fredag
2025-
03-
14</title>
327 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Frokostseminar_om_Noark_5_i_Oslo_fredag_2025_03_14.html
</link>
328 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Frokostseminar_om_Noark_5_i_Oslo_fredag_2025_03_14.html
</guid>
329 <pubDate>Fri,
31 Jan
2025 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
330 <description><p
>Nikita-prosjektet, der jeg er involvert, inviterer i samarbeid med
331 forskningsgruppen METAINFO og foreningen NUUG, til et frokostseminar
332 om Noark
5 og Noark
5 Tjenestegrensesnitt fredag
2025-
03-
14. Fokus
333 denne gangen er på bevaring og kassasjon. Seminaret finner sted ved
334 OsloMet, Pilestredet
46. Vi håper å få til videostrømming via
335 Internett av presentasjoner og paneldiskusjon. Oppdatert program og
336 lenker til påmeldingsskjema finner en via
337 <a href=
"https://noark.codeberg.page/noark5-seminars/
2025-
03-
14-noark-workshop.html
">arrangementets infoside
</a
>. Arrangementet er gratis.
339 <p
>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
340 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
342 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>. Merk,
343 betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)
</p
>
348 <title>121 packages in Debian mapped to hardware for automatic recommendation
</title>
349 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
121_packages_in_Debian_mapped_to_hardware_for_automatic_recommendation.html
</link>
350 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
121_packages_in_Debian_mapped_to_hardware_for_automatic_recommendation.html
</guid>
351 <pubDate>Sun,
19 Jan
2025 12:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
352 <description><p
>For some years now, I have been working on a automatic hardware
353 based package recommendation system for Debian and other Linux
354 distributions. The isenkram system I started on back in
2013 now
355 consist of two subsystems, one locating firmware files using the
356 information provided by apt-file, and one matching hardware to
357 packages using information provided by AppStream. The former is very
358 similar to the mechanism implemented in debian-installer to pick the
359 right firmware packages to install. This post is about the latter
360 system. Thanks to steady progress and good help from both other
361 Debian and upstream developers, I am happy to report that
362 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram
">the Isenkram
363 system
</a
> now are able to recommend
121 packages using information
365 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/
">AppStream
</a
>.
</p
>
367 <p
>The mapping is done using modalias information provided by the
368 kernel, the same information used by udev when creating device files,
369 and the kernel when deciding which kernel modules to load. To get all
370 the modalias identifiers relevant for your machine, you can run the
371 following command on the command line:
</p
>
374 find /sys/devices -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 sort -u
377 <p
>The modalias identifiers can look something like this:
</p
>
381 cpu:type:x86,ven0000fam0006mod003F:feature:,
0000,
0001,
0002,
0003,
0004,
0005,
0006,
0007,
0008,
0009,
000B,
000C,
000D,
000E,
000F,
0010,
0011,
0013,
0015,
0016,
0017,
0018,
0019,
001A,
001B,
001C,
001D,
001F,
002B,
0034,
003A,
003B,
003D,
0068,
006B,
006C,
006D,
006F,
0070,
0072,
0074,
0075,
0076,
0078,
0079,
007C,
0080,
0081,
0082,
0083,
0084,
0085,
0086,
0087,
0088,
0089,
008B,
008C,
008D,
008E,
008F,
0091,
0092,
0093,
0094,
0095,
0096,
0097,
0098,
0099,
009A,
009B,
009C,
009D,
009E,
00C0,
00C5,
00E1,
00E3,
00EB,
00ED,
00F0,
00F1,
00F3,
00F5,
00F6,
00F9,
00FA,
00FB,
00FD,
00FF,
0100,
0101,
0102,
0103,
0111,
0120,
0121,
0123,
0125,
0127,
0128,
0129,
012A,
012C,
012D,
0140,
0160,
0161,
0165,
016C,
017B,
01C0,
01C1,
01C2,
01C4,
01C5,
01C6,
01F9,
024A,
025A,
025B,
025C,
025F,
0282
382 dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr2.18
.1:bd08/
14/
2023:br2.18:svnDellInc.:pnPowerEdgeR730:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0H21J3:rvrA09:cvnDellInc.:ct23:cvr:skuSKU=NotProvided
383 pci:v00008086d00008D3Bsv00001028sd00000600bc07sc80i00
386 usb:v413CpA001d0000dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00in00
389 <p
>The entries above are a selection of the complete set available on
390 a Dell PowerEdge R730 machine I have access to, to give an idea about
391 the various styles of hardware identifiers presented in the modalias
392 format. When looking up relevant packages in a Debian Testing
393 installation on the same R730, I get this list of packages
397 % sudo isenkram-lookup
399 firmware-nvidia-graphics
406 <p
>The list consist of firmware packages requested by kernel modules,
407 as well packages with program to get the status from the RAID
408 controller and to maintain the LAN console. When the edac-utils
409 package providing tools to check the ECC RAM status will enter testing
410 in a few days, it will also show up as a proposal from isenkram. In
411 addition, once the mfiutil package we uploaded in October get past the
412 NEW processing, it will also propose a tool to configure the RAID
413 controller.
</p
>
415 <p
>Another example is the trusty old Lenovo Thinkpad X230, which have
416 hardware handled by several packages in the archive. This is running
417 on Debian Stable:
</p
>
426 firmware-misc-nonfree
440 <p
>Here there proposal consist of software to handle the camera,
441 bluetooth, network card, wifi card, GPU, fan, fingerprint reader and
442 acceleration sensor on the machine.
</p
>
444 <p
>Here is the complete set of packages currently providing hardware
445 mapping via AppStream in Debian Unstable: air-quality-sensor,
446 alsa-firmware-loaders, antpm, array-info, avarice, avrdude,
447 bmusb-v4l2proxy, brltty, calibre, colorhug-client, concordance-common,
448 consolekit, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux, edac-utils,
449 eegdev-plugins-free, ekeyd, elogind, firmware-amd-graphics,
450 firmware-ath9k-htc, firmware-atheros, firmware-b43-installer,
451 firmware-b43legacy-installer, firmware-bnx2, firmware-bnx2x,
452 firmware-brcm80211, firmware-carl9170, firmware-cavium,
453 firmware-intel-graphics, firmware-intel-misc, firmware-ipw2x00,
454 firmware-ivtv, firmware-iwlwifi, firmware-libertas,
455 firmware-linux-free, firmware-mediatek, firmware-misc-nonfree,
456 firmware-myricom, firmware-netronome, firmware-netxen,
457 firmware-nvidia-graphics, firmware-qcom-soc, firmware-qlogic,
458 firmware-realtek, firmware-ti-connectivity, fpga-icestorm, g810-led,
459 galileo, garmin-forerunner-tools, gkrellm-thinkbat, goldencheetah,
460 gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, i8kutils, imsprog, ledger-wallets-udev,
461 libairspy0, libam7xxx0.1, libbladerf2, libgphoto2-
6t64,
462 libhamlib-utils, libm2k0.9
.0, libmirisdr4, libnxt, libopenxr1-monado,
463 libosmosdr0, librem5-flash-image, librtlsdr0, libticables2-
8,
464 libx52pro0, libykpers-
1-
1, libyubikey-udev, limesuite,
465 linuxcnc-uspace, lomoco, madwimax, media-player-info, megactl, mixxx,
466 mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mu-editor, mustang-plug, nbc, nitrokey-app, nqc,
467 ola, openfpgaloader, openocd, openrazer-driver-dkms, pcmciautils,
468 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, ponyprog, printer-driver-splix,
469 python-yubico-tools, python3-btchip, qlcplus, rosegarden, scdaemon,
470 sispmctl, solaar, spectools, sunxi-tools, t2n, thinkfan, tlp,
471 tp-smapi-dkms, trezor, tucnak, ubertooth, usbrelay, uuu, viking,
472 w1retap, wsl, xawtv, xinput-calibrator, xserver-xorg-input-wacom and
475 <p
>In addition to these, there are several
476 <a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bts-usertags.cgi?user=pere%
40hungry.com
&tag=appstream-modalias
">with
477 patches pending in the Debian bug tracking system
</a
>, and even more
478 where no-one wrote patches yet. Good candiates for the latter are
480 <a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/lintian-tag.cgi?tag=appstream-metadata-missing-modalias-provide
">with
481 udev rules but no AppStream hardware information
</a
>.
</p
>
483 <p
>The isenkram system consist of two packages, isenkram-cli with the
484 command line tools, and isenkram with a GUI background process. The
485 latter will listen for dbus events from udev emitted when new hardware
486 become available (like when inserting a USB dongle or discovering a
487 new bluetooth device), look up the modalias entry for this piece of
488 hardware in AppStream (and a hard coded list of mappings from isenkram
489 - currently working hard to move this list to AppStream), and pop up a
490 dialog proposing to install any not already installed packages
491 supporting this hardware. It work very well today when inserting the
492 LEGO Mindstorms RCX, NXT and EV3 controllers. :) If you want to make
493 sure more hardware related packages get recommended, please help out
494 fixing the remaining packages in Debian to provide AppStream metadata
495 with hardware mappings.
</p
>
497 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
498 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
499 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
504 <title>What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in
2025?
</title>
505 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2025_.html
</link>
506 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2025_.html
</guid>
507 <pubDate>Sat,
18 Jan
2025 10:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
508 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html
">Seven
</a
>
510 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html
">twelve
</a
>
511 years ago, I measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian
512 was
</a
>, first by analysing the desktop files in all packages in the
513 archive, then by analysing the DEP-
11 AppStream data set. I guess it
514 is time to repeat the measurement, only for unstable as last time:
</p
>
516 <p
><strong
>Debian Unstable:
</strong
></p
>
520 ----- -----------------------
532 36 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
543 <p
>The list was created like this using a sid chroot:
</p
>
546 cat /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz | \
547 zcat | awk
'/^ - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $
2 }
' | sort | \
548 uniq -c | sort -nr | head -
20
551 <p
>It is nice to see that the same number of packages now support PNG
552 and JPEG. Last time JPEG had more support than PNG. Most of the MIME
553 types are known to me, but the
'audio/x-scpls
' one I have no idea what
554 represent, except it being an audio format. To find the packages
555 claiming support for this format, the appstreamcli command from the
556 appstream package can be used:
559 % appstreamcli what-provides mediatype audio/x-scpls | grep Package: | sort -u
560 Package: alsaplayer-common
567 Package: cynthiune.app
572 Package: kylin-burner
574 Package: mediaconch-gui
575 Package: mediainfo-gui
587 Package: soundconverter
594 <p
>Look like several video and auto tools understand the format.
595 Similarly one can check out the number of packages supporting the STL
596 format commonly used for
3D printing:
</p
>
599 % appstreamcli what-provides mediatype model/stl | grep Package: | sort -u
602 Package: open3d-viewer
606 <p
>How strange the
607 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r
">slic3r
</a
> and
608 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa
">prusa-slicer
</a
>
609 packages do not support STL. Perhaps just missing package metadata?
610 Luckily the amount of package metadata in Debian is getting better,
611 and hopefully this way of locating relevant packages for any file
612 format will be the preferred one soon.
614 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
615 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
616 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
621 <title>The
2025 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering
</title>
622 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/The_2025_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</link>
623 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/The_2025_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
624 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Jan
2025 14:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
625 <description><p
><a href=
"https://linuxcnc.org/
">The LinuxCNC project
</a
> is
626 trotting along. And I believe this great software system for
627 numerical control of machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma
628 cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and hexapods, would do even
629 better with more in-person developer gatherings, so we plan to
630 organise such gathering this summer too.
</p
>
632 <p
>This year we would like to invite to a small LinuxCNC and free
633 software fabrication workshop/gathering in Norway this summer for the
634 weekend starting July
4th
2025. New this year is the slightly larger
635 scope, and we invite people also outside the LinuxCNC community to
636 join. As earlier, we suggest to organize it as an
637 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
">unconference
</a
>,
638 where the participants create the program upon arrival.
</p
>
640 <p
>The location is a metal workshop
15 minutes drive away from to the
641 Gardermoen airport (OSL), where there is a lot of space and a hotel only
642 5 minutes away by car. We plan to fire up the barbeque in the evenings.
</p
>
644 <p
>Please let us know if you would like to join. We track the list of
645 participants on
<a href=
"https://pad.efn.no/p/linuxcnc-
2025-norway
">a
646 simple pad
</a
>, please add yourself there if you are interested in joining.
</p
>
648 <p
><a href=
"https://www.nuugfoundation.no/
">The NUUG Foundation
</a
> has on
649 our request offered to handle any money involved with this gathering,
650 in other words holding any sponsor funds and paying any bills.
651 NUUG Foundation is a spinnoff from the NUUG member organisation here
652 in Norway with long ties to the free software and open standards
653 communities.
</p
>
655 <p
>As usual we hope to find sponsors to pay for food, lodging and travel.
</p
>
657 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
658 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
659 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
664 <title>New lsdvd release
0.18 after ten years
</title>
665 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_0_18_after_ten_years.html
</link>
666 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_0_18_after_ten_years.html
</guid>
667 <pubDate>Sat,
21 Dec
2024 10:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
668 <description><p
>The rumors of the death of
669 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/
">the lsdvd project
</a
>
670 is slightly exaggerated. And the last few months, we have been
671 working on fixing and improving it, culminating in a new release last
672 night. This is the list of changes in the new
0.18 release, as
673 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/
59108028/
">announced
674 on the project mailing list
</a
>:
</p
>
678 <li
>Simplified autoconf setup, dropped --enable-debug option.
</li
>
679 <li
>Improved video resolution reporting (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
8/
">Fixes #
8</a
>).
</li
>
680 <li
>Applied patches fetched from BSDs (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
7/
">Fixes #
7</a
>).
</li
>
681 <li
>Corrected Perl output (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
1/
">Fixes #
1</a
>).
</li
>
682 <li
>Adjusted Pan and Scan entries to produce valid XML.
</li
>
683 <li
>Changed --help output from stderr to stdout.
</li
>
684 <li
>Corrected aspect ratio and audio format formatting.
</li
>
685 <li
>Avoid segfault when hitting a NULL pointer in the IFO structure.
</li
>
686 <li
>Change build rules to supress compiler flags, to make it easier to
687 spot warnings.
</li
>
688 <li
>Set default DVD device based on OS (Linux, *BSD, Darwin)
</li
>
689 <li
>Added libdvdread DVDDiscID to output.
</li
>
690 <li
>Corrected typo in longest track value in XML format.
</li
>
691 <li
>Switched XML output to use libxml to avoid string encoding issues.
</li
>
692 <li
>Added simple build time test suite.
</li
>
693 <li
>Cleaned up language code handling and adding missing mapping for
694 language codes
'nb
' and
'nn
'.
</li
>
695 <li
>Added JSON output support using -Oj.
</li
>
698 <p
>The most exciting news to me is easy access to the DVDDiscID, which
699 make it a lot easier to identify DVD duplicates across a large
700 collection of DVDs. During testing it has proved to be very effective
701 ad identifying when DVDs in a DVD box (say all Star Wars movies) is
702 identical to DVDs sold individually (like the same Star Wars movies
703 packaged individually).
</p
>
705 <p
>Because none of the current developers got access to do tarball
706 releases on Sourceforge any more, the release is only available as
707 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/
0.18/tree/
">a git
708 tag
</a
> in the repository. Lets hope it do not take ten years for the
709 next release. The project are discussing to move away from
710 Sourceforge, but it has not yet concluded.
</p
>
712 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
713 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
714 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
719 <title>More than
200 orphaned Debian packages moved to git,
216 to go
</title>
720 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/More_than_200_orphaned_Debian_packages_moved_to_git__216_to_go.html
</link>
721 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/More_than_200_orphaned_Debian_packages_moved_to_git__216_to_go.html
</guid>
722 <pubDate>Thu,
11 Jul
2024 12:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
723 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Time_to_move_orphaned_Debian_packages_to_git.html
">In
724 April
</a
>, I started migrating orphaned Debian packages without any
725 version control system listed in debian/control to git. This morning,
726 my Debian QA page finally reached
200 QA packages migrated. In
727 reality there are a few more, as the packages uploaded by someone else
728 after my initial upload have disappeared from my QA uploads list. As
729 I am running out of steam and will most likely focus on other parts of
730 Debian moving forward, I hope someone else will find time to continue
731 the migration to bring the number of orphaned packages without any
732 version control system down to zero. Here is the updated recipe if
733 someone want to help out.
</p
>
735 <p
>To locate packages to work on, the following one-liner can be used:
</p
>
737 <blockquote
><pre
>
738 PGPASSWORD=
"udd-mirror
" psql --port=
5432 --host=udd-mirror.debian.net \
739 --username=udd-mirror udd -c
"select source from sources \
740 where release =
'sid
' and (vcs_url ilike
'%anonscm.debian.org%
' \
741 OR vcs_browser ilike
'%anonscm.debian.org%
' or vcs_url IS NULL \
742 OR vcs_browser IS NULL) AND maintainer ilike
'%packages@qa.debian.org%
' \
743 order by random() limit
10;
"
744 </pre
></blockquote
>
746 <p
>Pick a random package from the list and run the latest edition of
748 <tt
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/images/
2024-
07-
11-debian-snap-to-salsa.sh
">debian-snap-to-salsa
</a
></tt
>
749 with the package name as the argument to prepare a git repository with
750 the existing packaging. This will download old Debian packages from
751 <tt
>snapshot.debian.org
</tt
>. Note that very recent uploads will not
752 be included, so check out the package on
<tt
>tracker.debian.org
</tt
>.
753 Next, run
<tt
>gbp buildpackage --git-ignore-new
</tt
> to verify that
754 the package build as it should, and then visit
755 <a href=
"https://salsa.debian.org/debian/
">https://salsa.debian.org/debian/
</a
>
756 and make sure there is not already a git repository for the package
757 there. I also did
<tt
>git log -p debian/control
</tt
> and look for vcs
758 entries to check if the package used to have a git repository on
759 Alioth, and see if it can be a useful starting point moving forward.
760 If all this check out, I created a new gitlab project below the Debian
761 group on salsa, push the package source there and upload a new version.
762 I tend to also ensure build hardening is enabled, if it prove to be
763 easy, and check if I can easily fix any lintian issues or bug reports.
764 If the process took more than
20 minutes, I dropped it and moved on to
765 another package.
</p
>
767 <p
>If I found patches in debian/patches/ that were not yet passed
768 upstream, I would send an email to make sure upstream know about them.
769 This has proved to be a valuable step, and caused several new releases
770 for software that initially appeared abandoned. :)
</p
>
772 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
773 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
774 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
779 <title>Some notes from the
2024 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering
</title>
780 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_notes_from_the_2024_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</link>
781 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_notes_from_the_2024_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
782 <pubDate>Wed,
10 Jul
2024 14:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
783 <description><p
>The Norwegian
<a href=
"https://linuxcnc.org/
">The LinuxCNC
</a
>
784 developer gathering
2024 is over. It was a great and productive
785 weekend, and I am sad that it is over.
</p
>
787 <p
>Regular readers probably still remember what LinuxCNC is, but her
788 is a quick summary for those that forgot? LinuxCNC is a free software
789 system for numerical control of machines such as milling machines,
790 lathes, plasma cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and
791 hexapods. It eats G-code and produce motor movement and other changes
792 to the physical world, while reading sensor input.
</p
>
794 <p
>I am not quite sure about the total head count, as not all people
795 were present at the gathering the entire weekend, but I believe it was
796 close to
10 people showing their faces at the gathering. The
"hard
797 core
" of the group, who stayed the entire weekend, were two from
798 Norway, two from Germany and one from England. I am happy with the
799 outcome from the gathering. We managed to wrap up a new stable
800 LinuxCNC release
2.9.3 and even tested it on real hardware within
801 minutes of the release. The release notes for
2.9.3 are still being
802 written, but should show up on on the project site in the next few
803 days. We managed to go through around twenty pull requests and merge
804 then into either the stable release (
2.9) or the development branch
805 (master). There are still around thirty pull requests left to
806 process, so we are not out of work yet. We even managed to
807 fix/improve a slightly worn lathe, and experiment with running a
808 mechanical clock using G-code.
</p
>
810 <p
>The evening barbeque worked well both on Saturday and Sunday. It
811 is quite fun to light up a charcoal grill using compressed air. Sadly
812 the weather was not the best, so we stayed indoors most of the
815 <p
>This gathering was made possible partly with sponsoring from both
816 <a href=
"https://www.redpill-linpro.com/
">Redpill Linpro
</a
>,
817 <a href=
"https://debian.org/
">Debian
</a
> and
818 <a href=
"https://nuugfoundation.no/
">NUUG Foundation
</a
>, and we are
819 most grateful for the support. I would also like to thank the local
820 school for lending us some furniture, and of course the rest of the
821 members of the organizers team, Asle and Bosse, for their countless
822 contributions. The gathering was such success that we want to do it
823 again next year.
</p
>
825 <p
>We plan to organize the next Norwegian LinuxCNC developer gathering
826 at the end of June next year, the weekend Friday
27th to Sunday
29th
827 of June
2025. I recommend you reserve the dates on your calendar
828 today. Other related communities are also welcome to join in, for
829 example those working on systems like FreeCAD and opencamlib, as I am
830 sure we have much in common and sharing experiences would be very
831 useful to all involved. We are of course looking for sponsors for
832 this gathering already. The total budget for this gathering was
833 around NOK
25.000 (around EUR
2.300), so our needs are quite modest.
834 Perhaps a machine or tools company would like to help out the free
835 software manufacturing community by sponsoring food, lodging and
836 transport for such gathering?
</p
>
projects / homepage.git / blob