I VHS-kassettenes -tid var det rett frem å ta vare på et TV-program en ønsket å kunne se -senere, uten å være avhengig av at programmet ble sendt på nytt. -Kanskje ønsket en å se programmet på hytten der det ikke var -TV-signal, eller av andre grunner ha det tilgjengelig for fremtidig -fornøyelse. Dette er blitt vanskeligere med introduksjon av -digital-TV og webstreaming, der opptak til harddisk er utenfor de -flestes kontroll. Men for NRK her i Norge, finnes det heldigvis flere -fri programvare-alternativer, som jeg har -skrevet -om -før. -Så lenge kilden for nedlastingen er lovlig lagt ut på nett (hvilket -jeg antar NRK gjør), så er slik lagring til privat bruk også lovlig i -Norge.
- -Sist jeg så på saken, i 2016, nevnte jeg at -youtube-dl ikke kunne -bake undertekster fra NRK inn i videofilene, og at jeg derfor -foretrakk andre alternativer. Nylig oppdaget jeg at dette har endret -seg. Fordelen med youtube-dl er at den er tilgjengelig direkte fra -Linux-distribusjoner som Debian -og Ubuntu, slik at en slipper å -finne ut selv hvordan en skal få dem til å virke.
- -For å laste ned et NRK-innslag med undertekster, og få den norske -underteksten pakket inn i videofilen, så kan følgende kommando -brukes:
+ +All the books I have published so far has been using +DocBook somewhere in the process. +For the first book, the source format was DocBook, while for every +later book it was an intermediate format used as the stepping stone to +be able to present the same manuscript in several formats, on paper, +as ebook in ePub format, as a HTML page and as a PDF file either for +paper production or for Internet consumption. This is made possible +with a wide variety of free software tools with DocBook support in +Debian. The source format of later books have been docx via rst, +Markdown, Filemaker and Asciidoc, and for all of these I was able to +generate a suitable DocBook file for further processing using pandoc, +a2x and asciidoctor, as well as rendering using +xmlto, +dbtoepub, +dblatex, +docbook-xsl and +fop.
+ +Most of the books I +have published are translated books, with English as the source +language. The use of +po4a to +handle translations using the gettext PO format has been a blessing, +but publishing translated books had triggered the need to ensure the +DocBook tools handle relevant languages correctly. For every new +language I have published, I had to submit patches dblatex, dbtoepub +and docbook-xsl fixing incorrect language and country specific issues +in the framework themselves. Typically this has been missing keywords +like 'figure' or sort ordering of index entries. After a while it +became tiresome to only discover issues like this by accident, and I +decided to write a DocBook "test framework" exercising various +features of DocBook and allowing me to see all features exercised for +a given language. It consist of a set of DocBook files, a version 4 +book, a version 5 book, a v4 book set, a v4 selection of problematic +tables, one v4 testing sidefloat and finally one v4 testing a book of +articles. The DocBook files are accompanied with a set of build rules +for building PDF using dblatex and docbook-xsl/fop, HTML using xmlto +or docbook-xsl and epub using dbtoepub. The result is a set of files +visualizing footnotes, indexes, table of content list, figures, +formulas and other DocBook features, allowing for a quick review on +the completeness of the given locale settings. To build with a +different language setting, all one need to do is edit the lang= value +in the .xml file to pick a different ISO 639 code value and run +'make'.
+ +The test framework +source code is available from Codeberg, and a generated set of +presentations of the various examples is available as Codeberg static +web pages at +https://pere.codeberg.page/docbook-example/. +Using this test framework I have been able to discover and report +several bugs and missing features in various tools, and got a lot of +them fixed. For example I got Northern Sami keywords added to both +docbook-xsl and dblatex, fixed several typos in Norwegian bokmål and +Norwegian Nynorsk, support for non-ascii title IDs added to pandoc, +Norwegian index sorting support fixed in xindy and initial Norwegian +Bokmål support added to dblatex. Some issues still remains, though. +Default index sorting rules are still broken in several tools, so the +Norwegian letters æ, ø and å are more often than not sorted properly +in the book index.
+ +The test framework recently received some more polish, as part of +publishing my latest book. This book contained a lot of fairly +complex tables, which exposed bugs in some of the tools. This made me +add a new test file with various tables, as well as spend some time to +brush up the build rules. My goal is for the test framework to +exercise all DocBook features to make it easier to see which features +work with different processors, and hopefully get them all to support +the full set of DocBook features. Feel free to send patches to extend +the test set, and test it with your favorite DocBook processor. +Please visit these two URLs to learn more:
--youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-format ttml \ - --convert-subtitles srt --embed-subs \ - https://tv.nrk.no/serie/ramm-ferdig-gaa/MUHU11000316/27-04-2018 -+ -
URL-eksemplet er dagens toppsak på tv.nrk.no. Resultatet er en -MP4-fil med filmen og undertekster som kan spilles av med VLC. Merk -at VLC ikke viser frem undertekster før du aktiverer dem. For å gjøre -det, høyreklikk med musa i fremviservinduet, velg menyvalget for -undertekst og så norsk språk. Jeg testet også '--write-auto-sub', -men det kommandolinjeargumentet ser ikke ut til å fungere, så jeg -endte opp med settet med argumentlisten over, som jeg fant i en -feilrapport i youtube-dl-prosjektets samling over feilrapporter.
- -Denne støtten i youtube-dl gjør det svært enkelt å lagre -NRK-innslag, det være seg nyheter, filmer, serier eller dokumentater, -for å ha dem tilgjengelig for fremtidig referanse og bruk, uavhengig -av hvor lenge innslagene ligger tilgjengelig hos NRK.
- -Programmet youtube-dl støtter også en rekke andre nettsteder, se -prosjektoversikten for -en -komplett liste.
+If you want to learn more on Docbook and translations, I recommend +having a look at the the DocBook +web site, +the DoCookBook +site and my earlier blog post on +how +the Skolelinux project process and translate documentation, a talk I gave earlier this year on +how +to translate and publish books using free software (Norwegian +only).
+ + + +As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
VG, -Dagbladet -og -NRK -melder i dag at flertallet i Familie- og kulturkomiteen på Stortinget -har bestemt seg for å introdusere en ny sensurinfrastruktur i Norge. -Fra før har Norge en «frivillig» sensurinfrastruktur basert på -DNS-navn, der de største ISP-ene basert på en liste med DNS-navn -forgifter DNS-svar og omdirigerer til et annet IP-nummer enn det som -ligger i DNS. Nå kommer altså IP-basert omdirigering i tillegg. Når -infrastrukturen er på plass, er sensur av IP-adresser redusert et -spørsmål om hvilke IP-nummer som skal blokkeres. Listen over -IP-adresser vil naturligvis endre seg etter hvert som myndighetene -endrer seg. Det er ingen betryggende tanke.
+ +
+
+I 1979 leverte Ole-Erik Yrvin en hovedfagsoppgave for Cand. Scient. + ved Institutt for sosiologi på Universitetet i Oslo på oppdrag fra + Forbruker- og administrasjonsdepartementet. Oppgaven evaluerte + Angrefristloven fra 1972, og det han oppdaget førte til at loven ble + endret fire år senere.
+ +Jeg har kjent Ole-Erik en stund, og synes det var trist at hans + oppgave ikke lenger er tilgjengelig, hverken fra oppdragsgiver + eller fra universitetet. Hans forsøk på å få den avbildet og lagt + ut på Internett har vist seg fånyttes, så derfor tilbød jeg meg for + en stund tilbake å publisere den og gjøre den tilgjengelig med + fribruksvilkår på Internett. Det er nå klart, og hovedfagsoppgaven + er tilgjengelig blant annet via min liste over + publiserte bøker, både som nettside, + digital + bok i ePub-format og på papir fra lulu.com. Jeg regner med at + den også vil dukke opp på nettbokhandlere i løpet av en måned eller + to.
+ +Alle tabeller og figurer er gjenskapt for bedre lesbarhet, noen + skrivefeil rettet opp og mange referanser har fått flere detaljer + som ISBN-nummer og DOI-referanse. Selv om jeg ikke regner med at + dette blir en kioskvelter, så håper jeg denne nye utgaven kan komme + fremtiden til glede.
+ +Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til +det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner +til min adresse +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b. Merk, +betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)
Brevpost er beskyttet av straffelovens bestemmelse som gjør det -kriminelt å åpne andres brev. Dette følger av (ny) straffelovs -§ 205 -(Krenkelse av retten til privat kommunikasjon), som sier at «Med -bot eller fengsel inntil 2 år straffes den som uberettiget ... c) -åpner brev eller annen lukket skriftlig meddelelse som er adressert -til en annen, eller på annen måte skaffer seg uberettiget tilgang til -innholdet.» Dette gjelder såvel postbud som alle andre som har -befatning med brevet etter at avsender har befatning med et lukket -brev. Tilsvarende står også tidligere utgaver av den norske -straffeloven.
- -Når en registrerer seg på usikre digitale postkasseløsningene, som -f.eks. Digipost og e-Boks, og slik tar disse i bruk, så gir en de som -står bak løsningene tillatelse til å åpne sine brev. Dette er -nødvendig for at innholdet i digital post skal kunne vises frem til -mottaker via tjenestens websider. Dermed gjelder ikke straffelovens -paragraf om forbud mot å åpne brev, da tilgangen ikke lenger er -uberettiget. En gir altså fremmede tilgang til å lese sin -korrespondanse. I tillegg vil bruk av slike usikre digitale -postbokser føre til at det blir registrert når du leser brevene, hvor -du befinner deg (vha. tilkoblingens IP-adresse), hvilket utstyr du -bruker og en rekke annen personlig informasjon som ikke er -tilgjengelig når papirpost brukes. Jeg foretrekker at det er -lovmessig beskyttelse av min korrespondanse, som jo inneholder privat -og personlig informasjon. Det bidrar til litt bedre vern av personlig -integritet i dagens norske samfunn.
+ +Medlemmene av Norges regjering har demonstert de siste mÃ¥nedene at +habilitetsvureringer ikke er deres sterke side og det gjelder bÃ¥de +Arbeiderpartiets og Senterpartiers representater. Det er heldigvis +enklere i det private, da inhabilitetsreglene kun gjelder de som +jobber for folket, ikke seg selv. Sist ut er utenriksminister +Huitfeldt. I gÃ¥r kom nyheten om at +Riksadvokaten +har konkludert med at nestsjefen i Ãkokrim kan behandle sak om +habilitet og innsidekunnskap for Huitfeldt, pÃ¥ tross av at hans +overordnede, sjefen for Ãkokrim, har meldt seg inhabil i saken. Dette +er litt rart. I veilednigen +«Habilitet +i kommuner og fylkeskommuner» av Kommunal- og regionaldepartementet +forteller de hva som gjelder, riktig nok gjelder veiledningen ikke for +Ãkokrim som jo ikke er kommune eller fylkeskommune, men jeg fÃ¥r ikke +inntrykk av at dette er regler som kun gjelder for kommune og +fylkeskommune: + +
++ +«2.1 Oversikt over inhabilitetsgrunnlagene + +
De alminnelige reglene om inhabilitet for den offentlige +forvaltningen er gitt i +forvaltningsloven +§§ 6 til 10. Forvaltningslovens hovedregel om inhabilitet framgår +av § 6. Her er det gitt tre ulike grunnlag som kan føre til at en +tjenestemann eller folkevalgt blir inhabil. I § 6 første ledd +bokstavene a til e er det oppstilt konkrete tilknytningsforhold mellom +tjenestemannen og saken eller sakens parter som automatisk fører til +inhabilitet. Annet ledd oppstiller en skjønnsmessig regel om at +tjenestemannen også kan bli inhabil etter en konkret vurdering av +inhabilitetsspørsmålet, der en lang rekke momenter kan være +relevante. I tredje ledd er det regler om såkalt avledet +inhabilitet. Det vil si at en underordnet tjenestemann blir inhabil +fordi en overordnet er inhabil.»
+
Loven sier ganske enkelt «Er den overordnede tjenestemann ugild, +kan avgjørelse i saken heller ikke treffes av en direkte underordnet +tjenestemann i samme forvaltningsorgan.» Jeg antar tanken er at en +underordnet vil stå i fare for å tilpasse sine konklusjoner til det +overordnet vil ha fordel av, for å fortsatt ha et godt forhold til sin +overordnede. Men jeg er ikke jurist og forstår nok ikke kompliserte +juridiske vurderinger. For å sitere «Kamerat Napoleon» av George +Orwell: «Alle dyr er like, men noen dyr er likere enn andre».
The leaders of the worlds have started to congratulate the -re-elected Russian head of state, and this causes some criticism. I -am though a little fascinated by a comment from USA senator John McCain, -sited -by The Hill and others: - -
-- -"An American president does not lead the Free World by -congratulating dictators on winning sham elections."
-
While I totally agree with the senator here, the way the quote is -phrased make me suspect that he is unaware of the simple fact that USA -have not lead the Free World since at least before its government -kidnapped a -completely innocent Canadian citizen in transit on his way home to -Canada via John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 and -sent him to be tortured in Syria for a year.
- -USA might be running ahead, but the path they are taking is not the -one taken by any Free World.
+ +I still enjoy Kodi and +LibreELEC as my multimedia center +at home. Sadly two of the services I really would like to use from +within Kodi are not easily available. The most wanted add-on would be +one making The Internet Archive +available, and it has +not been +working for many years. The second most wanted add-on is one +using the Invidious privacy enhanced +Youtube frontent. A plugin for this has been partly working, but +not been kept up to date in the Kodi add-on repository, and its +upstream seem to have given it up in April this year, when the git +repository was closed. A few days ago I got tired of this sad state +of affairs and decided to +have +a go at improving the Invidious add-on. As +Google has +already attacked the Invidious concept, so it need all the support +if can get. My small contribution here is to improve the service +status on Kodi.
+ +I added support to the Invidious add-on for automatically picking a +working Invidious instance, instead of requiring the user to specify +the URL to a specific instance after installation. I also had a look +at the set of patches floating around in the various forks on github, +and decided to clean up at least some of the features I liked and +integrate them into my new release branch. Now the plugin can handle +channel and short video items in search results. Earlier it could +only handle single video instances in the search response. I also +brushed up the set of metadata displayed a bit, but hope I can figure +out how to get more relevant metadata displayed.
+ +Because I only use Kodi 20 myself, I only test on version 20 and am +only motivated to ensure version 20 is working. Because of API changes +between version 19 and 20, I suspect it will fail with earlier Kodi +versions.
+ +I already +asked to have +the add-on added to the official Kodi 20 repository, and is +waiting to heard back from the repo maintainers.
+ +As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
So, Cambridge Analytica is getting some well deserved criticism for -(mis)using information it got from Facebook about 50 million people, -mostly in the USA. What I find a bit surprising, is how little -criticism Facebook is getting for handing the information over to -Cambridge Analytica and others in the first place. And what about the -people handing their private and personal information to Facebook? -And last, but not least, what about the government offices who are -handing information about the visitors of their web pages to Facebook? -No-one who looked at the terms of use of Facebook should be surprised -that information about peoples interests, political views, personal -lifes and whereabouts would be sold by Facebook.
- -What I find to be the real scandal is the fact that Facebook is -selling your personal information, not that one of the buyers used it -in a way Facebook did not approve when exposed. It is well known that -Facebook is selling out their users privacy, but a scandal -nevertheless. Of course the information provided to them by Facebook -would be misused by one of the parties given access to personal -information about the millions of Facebook users. Collected -information will be misused sooner or later. The only way to avoid -such misuse, is to not collect the information in the first place. If -you do not want Facebook to hand out information about yourself for -the use and misuse of its customers, do not give Facebook the -information.
- -Personally, I would recommend to completely remove your Facebook -account, and take back some control of your personal information. -According -to The Guardian, it is a bit hard to find out how to request -account removal (and not just 'disabling'). You need to -visit -a specific Facebook page and click on 'let us know' on that page -to get to the -real account deletion screen. Perhaps something to consider? I -would not trust the information to really be deleted (who knows, -perhaps NSA, GCHQ and FRA already got a copy), but it might reduce the -exposure a bit.
- -If you want to learn more about the capabilities of Cambridge -Analytica, I recommend to see the video recording of the one hour talk -Paul-Olivier Dehaye gave to NUUG last april about - -Data collection, psychometric profiling and their impact on -politics.
- -And if you want to communicate with your friends and loved ones, -use some end-to-end encrypted method like -Signal or -Ring, and stop sharing your private -messages with strangers like Facebook and Google.
+ +With yesterdays +release of Debian +12 Bookworm, I am happy to know the +the interactive +application firewall OpenSnitch is available for a wider audience. +I have been running it for a few weeks now, and have been surprised +about some of the programs connecting to the Internet. Some programs +are obviously calling out from my machine, like the NTP network based +clock adjusting system and Tor to reach other Tor clients, but others +were more dubious. For example, the KDE Window manager try to look up +the host name in DNS, for no apparent reason, but if this lookup is +blocked the KDE desktop get periodically stuck when I use it. Another +surprise was how much Firefox call home directly to mozilla.com, +mozilla.net and googleapis.com, to mention a few, when I visit other +web pages. This direct connection happen even if I told Firefox to +always use a proxy, and the proxy setting is ignored for this traffic. +Other surprising connections come from audacity and dirmngr (I do not +use Gnome). It took some trial and error to get a good default set of +permissions. Without it, I would get popups asking for permissions at +any time, also the most inconvenient ones where I am in the middle of +a time sensitive gaming session.
+ +I suspect some application developers should rethink when then need +to use network connections or DNS lookups, and recommend testing +OpenSnitch (only apt install opensnitch away in Debian +Bookworm) to locate and report any surprising Internet connections on +your desktop machine.
+ +At the moment the upstream developer and Debian package maintainer +is working on making the system more reliable in Debian, by enabling +the eBPF kernel module to track processes and connections instead of +depending in content in /proc/. This should enter unstable fairly +soon.
+ +As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
+ +Update 2023-06-12: I got a tip about +a list of privacy +issues in Free Software and the +#debian-privacy IRC +channel discussing these topics.
+I går kom det nok et argument for å holde seg unna det norske -helsevesenet. Da annonserte et stortingsflertall, bestående av Høyre, -Arbeiderpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet og Venstre, at de går inn for å -samle inn og lagre DNA-prøver fra hele befolkningen i Norge til evig -tid. Endringen gjelder innsamlede blodprøver fra nyfødte i Norge. -Det vil dermed ta litt tid før en har hele befolkningen, men det er -dit vi havner gitt nok tid. I dag er det nesten hundre prosent -oppslutning om undersøkelsen som gjøres like etter fødselen, på -bakgrunn av blodprøven det er snakk om å lagre, for å oppdage endel -medfødte sykdommer. Blodprøven lagres i dag i inntil seks år. -Stortingets -flertallsinnstilling er at tidsbegrensingen skal fjernes, og mener -at tidsubegrenset lagring ikke vil påvirke oppslutningen om -undersøkelsen.
- -Datatilsynet har ikke akkurat applaudert forslaget:
- -- -- -«Datatilsynet mener forslaget ikke i tilstrekkelig grad - synliggjør hvilke etiske og personvernmessige utfordringer som må - diskuteres før en etablerer en nasjonal biobank med blodprøver fra - hele befolkningen.»
- -
Det er flere historier om hvordan innsamlet biologisk materiale har -blitt brukt til andre formål enn de ble innsamlet til, og historien om -folkehelseinstituttets -lagring på vegne av politiet (Kripos) av innsamlet biologisk materiale -og DNA-informasjon i strid med loven viser at en ikke kan være -trygg på at lover og intensjoner beskytter de som blir berørt mot -misbruk av slik privat og personlig informasjon.
- -Det er verdt å merke seg at det kan forskes på de innsamlede -blodprøvene uten samtykke fra den det gjelder (eller foreldre når det -gjelder barn), etter en lovendring for en stund tilbake, med mindre -det er sendt inn skjema der en reserverer seg mot forskning uten -samtykke. Skjemaet er tilgjengelig fra -folkehelseinstituttets -websider, og jeg anbefaler, uavhengig av denne saken, varmt alle å -sende inn skjemaet for å dokumentere hvor mange som ikke synes det er -greit å fjerne krav om samtykke.
- -I tillegg bør en kreve destruering av alt biologisk materiale som -er samlet inn om en selv, for å redusere eventuelle negative -konsekvenser i fremtiden når materialet kommer på avveie eller blir -brukt uten samtykke, men det er så vidt jeg vet ikke noe system for -dette i dag.
+ +There is a European standard for reading utility meters like water, +gas, electricity or heat distribution meters. The +Meter-Bus standard +(EN 13757-2, EN 13757-3 and EN 13757â4) provide a cross vendor way +to talk to and collect meter data. I ran into this standard when I +wanted to monitor some heat distribution meters, and managed to find +free software that could do the job. The meters in question broadcast +encrypted messages with meter information via radio, and the hardest +part was to track down the encryption keys from the vendor. With this +in place I could set up a MQTT gateway to submit the meter data for +graphing.
+ +The free software systems in question, +rtl-wmbus to +read the messages from a software defined radio, and +wmbusmeters to +decrypt and decode the content of the messages, is working very well +and allowe me to get frequent updates from my meters. I got in touch +with upstream last year to see if there was any interest in publishing +the packages via Debian. I was very happy to learn that Fredrik +Ãhrström volunteered to maintain the packages, and I have since +assisted him in getting Debian package build rules in place as well as +sponsoring the packages into the Debian archive. Sadly we completed +it too late for them to become part of the next stable Debian release +(Bookworm). The wmbusmeters package just cleared the NEW queue. It +will need some work to fix a built problem, but I expect Fredrik will +find a solution soon.
+ +If you got a infrastructure meter supporting the Meter Bus +standard, I strongly recommend having a look at these nice +packages.
-Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til -det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner -til min adresse +
As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
I am working on publishing yet another book related to Creative -Commons. This time it is a book filled with interviews and histories -from those around the globe making a living using Creative -Commons.
- -Yesterday, after many months of hard work by several volunteer -translators, the first draft of a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the book -Made with Creative Commons from 2017 -was complete. The Spanish translation is also complete, while the -Dutch, Polish, German and Ukraine edition need a lot of work. Get in -touch if you want to help make those happen, or would like to -translate into your mother tongue.
- -The whole book project started when -Gunnar Wolf announced that he -was going to make a Spanish edition of the book. I noticed, and -offered some input on how to make a book, based on my experience with -translating the -Free -Culture and -The Debian -Administrator's Handbook books to Norwegian Bokmål. To make a -long story short, we ended up working on a Bokmål edition, and now the -first rough translation is complete, thanks to the hard work of -Ole-Erik Yrvin, Ingrid Yrvin, Allan Nordhøy and myself. The first -proof reading is almost done, and only the second and third proof -reading remains. We will also need to translate the 14 figures and -create a book cover. Once it is done we will publish the book on -paper, as well as in PDF, ePub and possibly Mobi formats.
- -The book itself originates as a manuscript on Google Docs, is -downloaded as ODT from there and converted to Markdown using pandoc. -The Markdown is modified by a script before is converted to DocBook -using pandoc. The DocBook is modified again using a script before it -is used to create a Gettext POT file for translators. The translated -PO file is then combined with the earlier mentioned DocBook file to -create a translated DocBook file, which finally is given to dblatex to -create the final PDF. The end result is a set of editions of the -manuscript, one English and one for each of the translations.
- -The translation is conducted using -the -Weblate web based translation system. Please have a look there -and get in touch if you would like to help out with proof -reading. :)
- + +The LinuxCNC project is making headway these days. A lot of +patches and issues have seen activity on +the project github +pages recently. A few weeks ago there was a developer gathering +over at the Tormach headquarter in +Wisconsin, and now we are planning a new gathering in Norway. If you +wonder what LinuxCNC is, lets quote Wikipedia:
+ ++"LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of +machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers, +cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or +joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has +several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen, +interactive development)." ++ +
The Norwegian developer gathering take place the weekend June 16th +to 18th this year, and is open for everyone interested in contributing +to LinuxCNC. Up to date information about the gathering can be found +in +the +developer mailing list thread where the gathering was announced. +Thanks to the good people at +Debian, +Redpill-Linpro and +NUUG Foundation, we +have enough sponsor funds to pay for food, and shelter for the people +traveling from afar to join us. If you would like to join the +gathering, get in touch.
+As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
@@ -378,7 +452,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -386,45 +460,31 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my addressToday I was pleasantly surprised to discover my operating system of -choice, Debian, was used in the info screens on the subway stations. -While passing Nydalen subway station in Oslo, Norway, I discovered the -info screen booting with some text scrolling. I was not quick enough -with my camera to be able to record a video of the scrolling boot -screen, but I did get a photo from when the boot got stuck with a -corrupt file system: - -
![[photo of subway info screen]](http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2018-03-02-ruter-debian-lenny.jpeg)
While I am happy to see Debian used more places, some details of the -content on the screen worries me.
- -The image show the version booting is 'Debian GNU/Linux lenny/sid', -indicating that this is based on code taken from Debian Unstable/Sid -after Debian Etch (version 4) was released 2007-04-08 and before -Debian Lenny (version 5) was released 2009-02-14. Since Lenny Debian -has released version 6 (Squeeze) 2011-02-06, 7 (Wheezy) 2013-05-04, 8 -(Jessie) 2015-04-25 and 9 (Stretch) 2017-06-15, according to -a Debian -version history on Wikpedia. This mean the system is running -around 10 year old code, with no security fixes from the vendor for -many years.
- -This is not the first time I discover the Oslo subway company, -Ruter, running outdated software. In 2012, -I -discovered the ticket vending machines were running Windows 2000, -and this was -still -the case in 2016. Given the response from the responsible people -in 2016, I would assume the machines are still running unpatched -Windows 2000. Thus, an unpatched Debian setup come as no surprise.
- -The photo is made available under the license terms -Creative Commons -4.0 Attribution International (CC BY 4.0).
+ +A bit delayed, +the interactive +application firewall OpenSnitch package in Debian now got the +latest fixes ready for Debian Bookworm. Because it depend on a +package missing on some architectures, the autopkgtest check of the +testing migration script did not understand that the tests were +actually working, so the migration was delayed. A bug in the package +dependencies is also fixed, so those installing the firewall package +(opensnitch) now also get the GUI admin tool (python3-opensnitch-ui) +installed by default. I am very grateful to Gustavo Iñiguez Goya for +his work on getting the package ready for Debian Bookworm.
+ +Armed with this package I have discovered some surprising +connections from programs I believed were able to work completly +offline, and it has already proven its worth, at least to me. If you +too want to get more familiar with the kind of programs using +Internett connections on your machine, I recommend testing apt +install opensnitch in Bookworm and see what you think.
+ +The package is still not able to build its eBPF module within +Debian. Not sure how much work it would be to get it working, but +suspect some kernel related packages need to be extended with more +header files to get it working.
As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -433,7 +493,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
@@ -441,31 +501,141 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my addressSurprising as it might sound, there are still computers using the -traditional Sys V init system, and there probably will be until -systemd start working on Hurd and FreeBSD. -The upstream -project still exist, though, and up until today, the upstream -source was available from Savannah via subversion. I am happy to -report that this just changed.
- -The upstream source is now in Git, and consist of three -repositories:
+ +While visiting a convention during Easter, it occurred to me that +it would be great if I could have a digital Dictaphone with +transcribing capabilities, providing me with texts to cut-n-paste into +stuff I need to write. The background is that long drives often bring +up the urge to write on texts I am working on, which of course is out +of the question while driving. With the release of +OpenAI Whisper, this +seem to be within reach with Free Software, so I decided to give it a +go. OpenAI Whisper is a Linux based neural network system to read in +audio files and provide text representation of the speech in that +audio recording. It handle multiple languages and according to its +creators even can translate into a different language than the spoken +one. I have not tested the latter feature. It can either use the CPU +or a GPU with CUDA support. As far as I can tell, CUDA in practice +limit that feature to NVidia graphics cards. I have few of those, as +they do not work great with free software drivers, and have not tested +the GPU option. While looking into the matter, I did discover some +work to provide CUDA support on non-NVidia GPUs, and some work with +the library used by Whisper to port it to other GPUs, but have not +spent much time looking into GPU support yet. I've so far used an old +X220 laptop as my test machine, and only transcribed using its +CPU.
+ +As it from a privacy standpoint is unthinkable to use computers +under control of someone else (aka a "cloud" service) to transcribe +ones thoughts and personal notes, I want to run the transcribing +system locally on my own computers. The only sensible approach to me +is to make the effort I put into this available for any Linux user and +to upload the needed packages into Debian. Looking at Debian Bookworm, I +discovered that only three packages were missing, +tiktoken, +triton, and +openai-whisper. For a while +I also believed +ffmpeg-python was +needed, but as its +upstream +seem to have vanished I found it safer +to rewrite +whisper to stop depending on in than to introduce ffmpeg-python +into Debian. I decided to place these packages under the umbrella of +the Debian Deep +Learning Team, which seem like the best team to look after such +packages. Discussing the topic within the group also made me aware +that the triton package was already a future dependency of newer +versions of the torch package being planned, and would be needed after +Bookworm is released.
+ +All required code packages have been now waiting in +the Debian NEW +queue since Wednesday, heading for Debian Experimental until +Bookworm is released. An unsolved issue is how to handle the neural +network models used by Whisper. The default behaviour of Whisper is +to require Internet connectivity and download the model requested to +~/.cache/whisper/ on first invocation. This obviously would +fail the +deserted island test of free software as the Debian packages would +be unusable for someone stranded with only the Debian archive and solar +powered computer on a deserted island.
+ +Because of this, I would love to include the models in the Debian +mirror system. This is problematic, as the models are very large +files, which would put a heavy strain on the Debian mirror +infrastructure around the globe. The strain would be even higher if +the models change often, which luckily as far as I can tell they do +not. The small model, which according to its creator is most useful +for English and in my experience is not doing a great job there +either, is 462 MiB (deb is 414 MiB). The medium model, which to me +seem to handle English speech fairly well is 1.5 GiB (deb is 1.3 GiB) +and the large model is 2.9 GiB (deb is 2.6 GiB). I would assume +everyone with enough resources would prefer to use the large model for +highest quality. I believe the models themselves would have to go +into the non-free part of the Debian archive, as they are not really +including any useful source code for updating the models. The +"source", aka the model training set, according to the creators +consist of "680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised +data collected from the web", which to me reads material with both +unknown copyright terms, unavailable to the general public. In other +words, the source is not available according to the Debian Free +Software Guidelines and the model should be considered non-free.
+ +I asked the Debian FTP masters for advice regarding uploading a +model package on their IRC channel, and based on the feedback there it +is still unclear to me if such package would be accepted into the +archive. In any case I wrote build rules for a +OpenAI +Whisper model package and +modified the +Whisper code base to prefer shared files under /usr/ and +/var/ over user specific files in ~/.cache/whisper/ +to be able to use these model packages, to prepare for such +possibility. One solution might be to include only one of the models +(small or medium, I guess) in the Debian archive, and ask people to +download the others from the Internet. Not quite sure what to do +here, and advice is most welcome (use the debian-ai mailing list).
+ +To make it easier to test the new packages while I wait for them to +clear the NEW queue, I created an APT source targeting bookworm. I +selected Bookworm instead of Bullseye, even though I know the latter +would reach more users, is that some of the required dependencies are +missing from Bullseye and I during this phase of testing did not want +to backport a lot of packages just to get up and running.
+ +Here is a recipe to run as user root if you want to test OpenAI +Whisper using Debian packages on your Debian Bookworm installation, +first adding the APT repository GPG key to the list of trusted keys, +then setting up the APT repository and finally installing the packages +and one of the models:
- - -I do not really spend much time on the project these days, and I -has mostly retired, but found it best to migrate the source to a good -version control system to help those willing to move it forward.
++curl https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/D78F5C4796F353D211B119E28200D9B589641240.asc \ + -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/pere-whisper.asc +mkdir -p /etc/apt/sources.list.d +cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pere-whisper.list <<EOF +deb https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main +deb-src https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main +EOF +apt update +apt install openai-whisper ++
The package work for me, but have not yet been tested on any other +computer than my own. With it, I have been able to (badly) transcribe +a 2 minute 40 second Norwegian audio clip to test using the small +model. This took 11 minutes and around 2.2 GiB of RAM. Transcribing +the same file with the medium model gave a accurate text in 77 minutes +using around 5.2 GiB of RAM. My test machine had too little memory to +test the large model, which I believe require 11 GiB of RAM. In +short, this now work for me using Debian packages, and I hope it will +for you and everyone else once the packages enter Debian.
+ +Now I can start on the audio recording part of this project.
+As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
@@ -473,7 +643,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -481,71 +651,64 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my addressA few days ago, a new major version of -VLC was announced, and I -decided to check out if it now supported streaming over -bittorrent and -webtorrent. Bittorrent is one of -the most efficient ways to distribute large files on the Internet, and -Webtorrent is a variant of Bittorrent using -WebRTC as its transport channel, -allowing web pages to stream and share files using the same technique. -The network protocols are similar but not identical, so a client -supporting one of them can not talk to a client supporting the other. -I was a bit surprised with what I discovered when I started to look. -Looking at -the release -notes did not help answering this question, so I started searching -the web. I found several news articles from 2013, most of them -tracing the news from Torrentfreak -("Open -Source Giant VLC Mulls BitTorrent Streaming Support"), about a -initiative to pay someone to create a VLC patch for bittorrent -support. To figure out what happend with this initiative, I headed -over to the #videolan IRC channel and asked if there were some bug or -feature request tickets tracking such feature. I got an answer from -lead developer Jean-Babtiste Kempf, telling me that there was a patch -but neither he nor anyone else knew where it was. So I searched a bit -more, and came across an independent -VLC plugin to add -bittorrent support, created by Johan Gunnarsson in 2016/2017. -Again according to Jean-Babtiste, this is not the patch he was talking -about.
- -Anyway, to test the plugin, I made a working Debian package from -the git repository, with some modifications. After installing this -package, I could stream videos from -The Internet Archive using VLC -commands like this:
- -- --vlc https://archive.org/download/LoveNest/LoveNest_archive.torrent -
The plugin is supposed to handle magnet links too, but since The -Internet Archive do not have magnet links and I did not want to spend -time tracking down another source, I have not tested it. It can take -quite a while before the video start playing without any indication of -what is going on from VLC. It took 10-20 seconds when I measured it. -Some times the plugin seem unable to find the correct video file to -play, and show the metadata XML file name in the VLC status line. I -have no idea why.
- -I have created a request for -a new package in Debian (RFP) and -asked if -the upstream author is willing to help make this happen. Now we -wait to see what come out of this. I do not want to maintain a -package that is not maintained upstream, nor do I really have time to -maintain more packages myself, so I might leave it at this. But I -really hope someone step up to do the packaging, and hope upstream is -still maintaining the source. If you want to help, please update the -RFP request or the upstream issue.
- -I have not found any traces of webtorrent support for VLC.
- + +Today I finally found time to track down a useful radio frequency +scanner for my software defined radio. Just for fun I tried to locate +the radios used in the areas, and a good start would be to scan all +the frequencies to see what is in use. I've tried to find a useful +program earlier, but ran out of time before I managed to find a useful +tool. This time I was more successful, and after a few false leads I +found a description of +rtlsdr-scanner +over at the Kali site, and was able to track down +the +Kali package git repository to build a deb package for the +scanner. Sadly the package is missing from the Debian project itself, +at least in Debian Bullseye. Two runtime dependencies, +python-visvis +and +python-rtlsdr +had to be built and installed separately. Luckily 'gbp +buildpackage' handled them just fine and no further packages had +to be manually built. The end result worked out of the box after +installation.
+ +My initial scans for FM channels worked just fine, so I knew the +scanner was functioning. But when I tried to scan every frequency +from 100 to 1000 MHz, the program stopped unexpectedly near the +completion. After some debugging I discovered USB software radio I +used rejected frequencies above 948 MHz, triggering a unreported +exception breaking the scan. Changing the scan to end at 957 worked +better. I similarly found the lower limit to be around 15, and ended +up with the following full scan:
+ +
Saving the scan did not work, but exporting it as a CSV file worked +just fine. I ended up with around 477k CVS lines with dB level for +the given frequency.
+ +The save failure seem to be a missing UTF-8 encoding issue in the +python code. Will see if I can find time to send a patch +upstream +later to fix this exception:
+ ++Traceback (most recent call last): + File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save + save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations) + File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot + handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4)) +TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' +Traceback (most recent call last): + File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save + save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations) + File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot + handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4)) +TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' ++
As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
@@ -553,14 +716,14 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
