Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser +
Entries tagged "debian".
+ +Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming @@ -50,28 +47,26 @@ wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to be the only one fitting our needs. :/
-This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in +
This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network. @@ -86,28 +81,26 @@ development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one of these cards.
-Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut. Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den @@ -120,28 +113,26 @@ gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken insserv.
-The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from +
The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from optimal. There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC @@ -174,28 +165,26 @@ computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a new IETF work group? -I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian +
I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost @@ -211,28 +200,26 @@ proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax now. :)
-Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a +
Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications. @@ -258,28 +245,26 @@ requirements change.
open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single application that do not use open network protocol or open formats. -Julien Blache claim that no patch is better than a useless patch. I completely disagree, as a patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also @@ -287,28 +272,26 @@ prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive properties.
-There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the +
There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone do not yet know them.
@@ -345,28 +328,26 @@ errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are surrounded by today. -Dagens IT melder at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin, når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter, personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om @@ -396,28 +377,26 @@ maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er betydelige.
-Kom over +
Kom over interessante tall fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg @@ -426,28 +405,26 @@ jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
-Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store +
Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen @@ -475,28 +452,26 @@ Copyright Treaty Work?
href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag på Slashdot. -I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the +
I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu funded @@ -543,28 +518,26 @@ possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/; insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)
-After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from +
After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the @@ -587,28 +560,26 @@ working on the future release.
It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
-Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2, +
Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2, and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days. @@ -620,28 +591,26 @@ are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based non-predictable kernel in the early boot. -These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite +
These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want to test your Squeeze system, make sure @@ -677,28 +646,26 @@ the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at the list of usertagged bugs related to this.
-The last few days a new boot system called +
The last few days a new boot system called systemd has been introduced @@ -731,28 +698,26 @@ new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released with parallel booting enabled by default.
-In the recent Debian Edu versions, the +
In the recent Debian Edu versions, the sitesummary system is used to keep track of the machines in the school network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the @@ -778,28 +743,26 @@ machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not written yet.
-Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in +
Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing. Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than expected, if I am to believe the @@ -826,28 +789,26 @@ the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at the list of usertagged bugs related to this.
-After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally +
After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now, definitely helped freeing some time.
@@ -889,28 +850,26 @@ solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.If you want to discuss the details of these features, please contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
-A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing. +
A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing. The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious issues are known and should be solved: @@ -950,28 +909,26 @@ list of usertagged bugs related to this.
Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
-It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to +
It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to @@ -995,28 +952,26 @@ but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
-When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible +
When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from @@ -1036,7 +991,7 @@ maintainer:~#
The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model -information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen +information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line option to list the individual machines.
@@ -1049,56 +1004,52 @@ their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions, it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central collector. -Via the blog of Rob Weir I came across the very interesting essay named The Art of Standards Wars (PDF 25 pages). I recommend it for everyone following the standards wars of today.
-If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d +
If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave @@ -1140,28 +1091,26 @@ to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good choice. -The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to +
The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs have been discovered and reported in the process (#585410 in nagios3-cgi, @@ -1281,28 +1230,26 @@ packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop packages.
-My testing of Debian upgrades from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've finally made the upgrade logs available from @@ -1471,28 +1418,26 @@ continue.
xulrunner-1.9 -A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel +
A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now, I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a @@ -1534,28 +1479,26 @@ installation.
install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases like this. -A while back, I +
A while back, I complained about the fact that it is not possible with the provided schemas for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets @@ -1598,28 +1541,26 @@ package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
-The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP +
The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is @@ -1650,28 +1591,26 @@ useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
-Here is a short update on my + +
Here is a short update on my my Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing. Here is a summary of the difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm @@ -1764,28 +1703,26 @@ in git today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely. No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce the difference somewhat. -
Since my last post about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application @@ -1800,28 +1737,26 @@ have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
-Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support +
Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
@@ -1896,28 +1831,26 @@ Xperience, Inc., 2000. I found its files on a personal home page over at redhat.com. -For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and +
For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way @@ -1975,28 +1908,26 @@ might be a good place to put it.
If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
-This is a +
I discovered this while doing +
I discovered this while doing automated testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze. A few packages in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed @@ -2378,27 +2307,2048 @@ apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at it.
-In the Debian +popularity-contest numbers, the adobe-flashplugin package the +second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth +most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that +working flash is important for Debian users. Around 10 percent of the +users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package +installed.
+ +In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008 +(«Skolelinux +i bruk â Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og +stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs»), one of the most important problems +schools experienced with Debian +Edu/Skolelinux was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational +web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in +the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a +good reason to stay with Windows.
+ +I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was +said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand +everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a +comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and +non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common +understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for +example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because +it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux +distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web +pages they want to visit.
+ +This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian +and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the +distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google +Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance +to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as +the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in +unstable. The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7. +The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the +release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree +with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus +accept the new package into Squeeze.
+ +Some updates.
+ +My gnash pledge to +raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of 10 +signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it. +More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious +how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached. +:)
+ +On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped +about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of +generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code. +It is called +kcov, +and can be used using kcov <directory> <binary>. +It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze +after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and +libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is +solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
+ +Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for a +new alpha release of Debian Edu, and just published the second +alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu / +Skolelinux +release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your +school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin +client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added +yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows +clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
+ +
3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in +3D linked in from +the +thingiverse blog.
+ +Answering +the +call from the Gnash project for +buildbot slaves to test the +current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian +Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on +Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new +releases out more often.
+ +As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to, +I have considered setting up a Debian/kfreebsd +machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd +architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5 +TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I +finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with +kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some +visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the +screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the +testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a +fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is +useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a +gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
+ +I'm still running upgrade testing of the +Lenny +Gnome and KDE Desktop, but have not had time to spend on reporting the +status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.
+ +I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I +report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else +can see if anything should be changed.
+ +This is for Gnome:
- - Tags: debian, english, nuug. - -Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
+ ++ +Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude + ++ apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support + browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper + dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger + freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes + gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual + geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds + gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core + gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot + gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell + gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more + gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 + gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf + gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd + libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap + libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0 + libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0 + libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0 + libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2 + libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard + libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7 + libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4 + libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil + libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data + libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4 + libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common + libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil + libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil + libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil + libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil + libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6 + libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8 + libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa + libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1 + libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4 + libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0 + libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils + mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto + nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex + openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml + python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom + python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform + python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers + python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree + python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata + python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed + python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako + python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify + python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources + python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial + python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch + python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit + python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data + remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder + rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell + software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev + telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy + totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins + transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr + zip +
+ ++ arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog + epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange + fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit + gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data + gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils + gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap + guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 + libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 + libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3 + libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 + libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3 + libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9 + libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2 + libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0 + libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 + libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0 + libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29 + libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50 + libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7 + libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 + libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 + libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 + libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 + libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1 + libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 + libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 + libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse + sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common + totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim +
Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
+ ++ ++ gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs +
Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
+ ++ ++[nothing] +
This is for KDE:
+ +Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
+ ++ ++ autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss + edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext + ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common + gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra + kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate + kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins + kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window + kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data + kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc + kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins + kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev + kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo + killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts + kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data + ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0 + libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++ + libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1 + libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl + libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl + libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5 + libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl + libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0 + libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl + libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java + lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins + openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley + parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat + pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync + speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex + ttf-sazanami-gothic +
Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
+ ++ ++ amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs + dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy + kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch + kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit + keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview + kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor + kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines + klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines + kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka + kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec + kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet + ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime + ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow + kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz + kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile + libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 + libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 + libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 + libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0 + libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38 + libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29 + libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3 + libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2 + libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1 + libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10 + libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl + libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3 + libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3 + libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 + libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat + mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base + texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy + ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts +
Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
+ ++ ++ dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager + kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace + kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver + kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10 + netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement + xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra + xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod +
Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
+ ++ ++ kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror +
Most of the computers in use by the +Debian Edu/Skolelinux project +are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a +fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate +them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine. This was a +bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual +machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I +know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert +several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
+ +I found +a +nice recipe to do this, and wrote the following script to do the +migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk +image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk +image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the +new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
+ +
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# Based on
+# http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
+
+set -e
+set -x
+
+if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
+ echo "Usage: $0 <hostname>"
+ exit 1
+else
+ host="$1"
+fi
+
+if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
+ echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
+ exit 1
+fi
+
+# Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
+disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
+swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
+totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
+
+img=$host.img
+#dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
+qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
+
+parted $img mklabel msdos
+parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
+parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
+parted $img set 1 boot on
+
+modprobe dm-mod
+losetup /dev/loop0 $img
+kpartx -a /dev/loop0
+
+dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
+fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
+mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
+
+kpartx -d /dev/loop0
+losetup -d /dev/loop0
+
+
+The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but +if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
+ +After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with +the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and +set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines +seem to work just fine.
+ +Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated +upgrade testing of the +Lenny +Gnome and KDE Desktop to do apt-get autoremove when using apt-get. +This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and +can now present the updated result from today:
+ +This is for Gnome:
+ +Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
+ ++ ++ apache2.2-bin + aptdaemon + baobab + binfmt-support + browser-plugin-gnash + cheese-common + cli-common + cups-pk-helper + dmz-cursor-theme + empathy + empathy-common + freedesktop-sound-theme + freeglut3 + gconf-defaults-service + gdm-themes + gedit-plugins + geoclue + geoclue-hostip + geoclue-localnet + geoclue-manual + geoclue-yahoo + gnash + gnash-common + gnome + gnome-backgrounds + gnome-cards-data + gnome-codec-install + gnome-core + gnome-desktop-environment + gnome-disk-utility + gnome-screenshot + gnome-search-tool + gnome-session-canberra + gnome-system-log + gnome-themes-extras + gnome-themes-more + gnome-user-share + gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 + gstreamer0.10-tools + gtk2-engines + gtk2-engines-pixbuf + gtk2-engines-smooth + hamster-applet + libapache2-mod-dnssd + libapr1 + libaprutil1 + libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 + libaprutil1-ldap + libart2.0-cil + libboost-date-time1.42.0 + libboost-python1.42.0 + libboost-thread1.42.0 + libchamplain-0.4-0 + libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 + libcheese-gtk18 + libclutter-gtk-0.10-0 + libcryptui0 + libdiscid0 + libelf1 + libepc-1.0-2 + libepc-common + libepc-ui-1.0-2 + libfreerdp-plugins-standard + libfreerdp0 + libgconf2.0-cil + libgdata-common + libgdata7 + libgdu-gtk0 + libgee2 + libgeoclue0 + libgexiv2-0 + libgif4 + libglade2.0-cil + libglib2.0-cil + libgmime2.4-cil + libgnome-vfs2.0-cil + libgnome2.24-cil + libgnomepanel2.24-cil + libgpod-common + libgpod4 + libgtk2.0-cil + libgtkglext1 + libgtksourceview2.0-common + libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil + libmono-addins0.2-cil + libmono-cairo2.0-cil + libmono-corlib2.0-cil + libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil + libmono-posix2.0-cil + libmono-security2.0-cil + libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil + libmono-system2.0-cil + libmtp8 + libmusicbrainz3-6 + libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil + libndesk-dbus1.0-cil + libopal3.6.8 + libpolkit-gtk-1-0 + libpt2.6.7 + libpython2.6 + librpm1 + librpmio1 + libsdl1.2debian + libsrtp0 + libssh-4 + libtelepathy-farsight0 + libtelepathy-glib0 + libtidy-0.99-0 + media-player-info + mesa-utils + mono-2.0-gac + mono-gac + mono-runtime + nautilus-sendto + nautilus-sendto-empathy + p7zip-full + pkg-config + python-aptdaemon + python-aptdaemon-gtk + python-axiom + python-beautifulsoup + python-bugbuddy + python-clientform + python-coherence + python-configobj + python-crypto + python-cupshelpers + python-elementtree + python-epsilon + python-evolution + python-feedparser + python-gdata + python-gdbm + python-gst0.10 + python-gtkglext1 + python-gtksourceview2 + python-httplib2 + python-louie + python-mako + python-markupsafe + python-mechanize + python-nevow + python-notify + python-opengl + python-openssl + python-pam + python-pkg-resources + python-pyasn1 + python-pysqlite2 + python-rdflib + python-serial + python-tagpy + python-twisted-bin + python-twisted-conch + python-twisted-core + python-twisted-web + python-utidylib + python-webkit + python-xdg + python-zope.interface + remmina + remmina-plugin-data + remmina-plugin-rdp + remmina-plugin-vnc + rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder + rhythmbox-plugins + rpm-common + rpm2cpio + seahorse-plugins + shotwell + software-center + system-config-printer-udev + telepathy-gabble + telepathy-mission-control-5 + telepathy-salut + tomboy + totem + totem-coherence + totem-mozilla + totem-plugins + transmission-common + xdg-user-dirs + xdg-user-dirs-gtk + xserver-xephyr +
Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
+ ++ ++ cheese + ekiga + eog + epiphany-extensions + evolution-exchange + fast-user-switch-applet + file-roller + gcalctool + gconf-editor + gdm + gedit + gedit-common + gnome-games + gnome-games-data + gnome-nettool + gnome-system-tools + gnome-themes + gnuchess + gucharmap + guile-1.8-libs + libavahi-ui0 + libdmx1 + libgalago3 + libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 + libgtksourceview2.0-0 + liblircclient0 + libsdl1.2debian-alsa + libspeexdsp1 + libsvga1 + rhythmbox + seahorse + sound-juicer + system-config-printer + totem-common + transmission-gtk + vinagre + vino +
Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
+ ++ ++ gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs +
Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
+ ++ ++[nothing] +
This is for KDE:
+ +Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
+ ++ ++ ksmserver +
Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
+ ++ ++ kwin + network-manager-kde +
Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
+ ++ ++ arts + dolphin + freespacenotifier + google-gadgets-gst + google-gadgets-xul + kappfinder + kcalc + kcharselect + kde-core + kde-plasma-desktop + kde-standard + kde-window-manager + kdeartwork + kdeartwork-emoticons + kdeartwork-style + kdeartwork-theme-icon + kdebase + kdebase-apps + kdebase-workspace + kdebase-workspace-bin + kdebase-workspace-data + kdeeject + kdelibs + kdeplasma-addons + kdeutils + kdewallpapers + kdf + kfloppy + kgpg + khelpcenter4 + kinfocenter + konq-plugins-l10n + konqueror-nsplugins + kscreensaver + kscreensaver-xsavers + ktimer + kwrite + libgle3 + libkde4-ruby1.8 + libkonq5 + libkonq5-templates + libnetpbm10 + libplasma-ruby + libplasma-ruby1.8 + libqt4-ruby1.8 + marble-data + marble-plugins + netpbm + nuvola-icon-theme + plasma-dataengines-workspace + plasma-desktop + plasma-desktopthemes-artwork + plasma-runners-addons + plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets + plasma-scriptengine-python + plasma-scriptengine-qedje + plasma-scriptengine-ruby + plasma-scriptengine-webkit + plasma-scriptengines + plasma-wallpapers-addons + plasma-widget-folderview + plasma-widget-networkmanagement + ruby + sweeper + update-notifier-kde + xscreensaver-data-extra + xscreensaver-gl + xscreensaver-gl-extra + xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod +
Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
+ ++ ++ ark + google-gadgets-common + google-gadgets-qt + htdig + kate + kdebase-bin + kdebase-data + kdepasswd + kfind + klipper + konq-plugins + konqueror + ksysguard + ksysguardd + libarchive1 + libcln6 + libeet1 + libeina-svn-06 + libggadget-1.0-0b + libggadget-qt-1.0-0b + libgps19 + libkdecorations4 + libkephal4 + libkonq4 + libkonqsidebarplugin4a + libkscreensaver5 + libksgrd4 + libksignalplotter4 + libkunitconversion4 + libkwineffects1a + libmarblewidget4 + libntrack-qt4-1 + libntrack0 + libplasma-geolocation-interface4 + libplasmaclock4a + libplasmagenericshell4 + libprocesscore4a + libprocessui4a + libqalculate5 + libqedje0a + libqtruby4shared2 + libqzion0a + libruby1.8 + libscim8c2a + libsmokekdecore4-3 + libsmokekdeui4-3 + libsmokekfile3 + libsmokekhtml3 + libsmokekio3 + libsmokeknewstuff2-3 + libsmokeknewstuff3-3 + libsmokekparts3 + libsmokektexteditor3 + libsmokekutils3 + libsmokenepomuk3 + libsmokephonon3 + libsmokeplasma3 + libsmokeqtcore4-3 + libsmokeqtdbus4-3 + libsmokeqtgui4-3 + libsmokeqtnetwork4-3 + libsmokeqtopengl4-3 + libsmokeqtscript4-3 + libsmokeqtsql4-3 + libsmokeqtsvg4-3 + libsmokeqttest4-3 + libsmokeqtuitools4-3 + libsmokeqtwebkit4-3 + libsmokeqtxml4-3 + libsmokesolid3 + libsmokesoprano3 + libtaskmanager4a + libtidy-0.99-0 + libweather-ion4a + libxklavier16 + libxxf86misc1 + okteta + oxygencursors + plasma-dataengines-addons + plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba + plasma-widget-lancelot + plasma-widgets-addons + plasma-widgets-workspace + polkit-kde-1 + ruby1.8 + systemsettings + update-notifier-common +
Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and +aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of +differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after +the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
+ +In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were +presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC. +Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try +to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out +gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure +model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message +reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or +just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
+ +
But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use +mplayer in Debian +Edu/Skolelinux. The reason is simple. We need a good browser +plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is +not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there +is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I +last +tested the browser plugins available in Debian, the VLC plugin +failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If +the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer +package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
+ +While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly +annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of +keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its +shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window. +For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I +wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in +window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart +the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the +web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at +what is going on.
+ +With this weeks lawless +governmental +attacks on Wikileak and +free +speech, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can +not be trusted to handle money transactions. +A blog post from +Simon +Phipps on bitcoin reminded me about a project that a friend of +mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get +involved with BitCoin. I got +some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me +some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon +for helping me remember BitCoin.
+ +So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital +crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer +networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central +control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments +and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The +source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9 +for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command +line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas +will get the package into +Debian soon.
+ +Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR. +There are companies accepting +bitcoins when selling services and goods, and there are even +currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There +are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you +want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare, +you can even get +some for free (0.05 +bitcoin at the time of writing). Use +BitcoinWatch to keep an eye +on the current exchange rates.
+ +As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my +machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin +donations to the address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b. Thank you!
+ +As I continue to explore +BitCoin, I've starting to wonder +what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws +and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
+ +One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are +verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction +is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been +published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is +possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to +that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for +all transactions. There I can see that my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b +have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the +1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3 +address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address +1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt +of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and +every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The +fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given +address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to +generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told +there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or +organisation without the person or organisation revealing it +themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
+ +In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and +regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border +without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting +laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin. +If the Skolelinux foundation +(SLX +Debian Labs) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to +normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted? +Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or +not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate +should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay +income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in +BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
+ +For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and +accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to +the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be +easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get +access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really +a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin, +so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I +would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs +and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time +if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby +to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they +will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which +probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I +believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming +currencies.
+ +The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is +CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is +competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles +to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get 50 +BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to +join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins, +by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines +and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50 +BitCoins. Check out +BitCoin Pool +if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a +machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones +own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining +yet.
+ +Update 2010-12-15: Found an interesting +criticism of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought +it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be +equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
+ +The last few days I have spent at work here at the University of Oslo testing if the new +batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few +years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand +computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and +five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX +group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL +and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the +university.
+ +My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and +perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE +install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run +a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When +something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move +on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS +vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely +have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
+ +Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests +I perform on a new model.
+ +-
+
+
- Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid +and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with +RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze. + +
- Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after +installation, X.org is working. + +
- Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in +package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second +reported by the program. + +
- Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when +logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there +are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if +the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I +normally test this by playing +a HTML5 +video in Firefox/Iceweasel. + +
- Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB +memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this. + +
- Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD +I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this. + +
- Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a +picture from the v4l device show up. + +
- Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if +any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a +few. + +
- For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have +memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE +notice this. + +
- For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the +special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after +resume. + +
- For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level, +adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output, +switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from +laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are +not. + +
- Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers, +acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how +to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their +existence. + +
By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are +for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report +the test results later. For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work +fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid, +and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p. As you +can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting +observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than +RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
+ +In the +discover-data +package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information +about the running hardware for use when people report missing +information. One part of this script that I find very useful when +debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module +to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel +module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see +the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run +/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1. The relevant output on +one of my machines like this:
+ ++loaded modules: +10de:03eb i2c_nforce2 +10de:03f1 ohci_hcd +10de:03f2 ehci_hcd +10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel +10de:03ec pata_amd +10de:03f6 sata_nv +1022:1103 k8temp +109e:036e bttv +109e:0878 snd_bt87x +11ab:4364 sky2 ++ +
The code in question look like this, slightly modified for +readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:
+ +
+if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
+ echo loaded pci modules:
+ (
+ cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
+ for address in * ; do
+ if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
+ module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
+ if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
+ address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
+ id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
+ echo "$id $module"
+ fi
+ fi
+ done
+ )
+ echo
+fi
+
+
+Similar code could be used to extract USB device module +mappings:
+ +
+if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
+ echo loaded usb modules:
+ (
+ cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
+ for address in * ; do
+ if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
+ module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
+ if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
+ address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
+ id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
+ if [ "$id" ] ; then
+ echo "$id $module"
+ fi
+ fi
+ fi
+ done
+ )
+ echo
+fi
+
+
+This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as +well.
+ +The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security +issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that +it should be possible to use the information about security issues +available on the Internet, and check our locally +maintained/distributed software against this information. It should +allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The +CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point, +and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by +the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure +out which security holes were present in our free software +collection.
+ +After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first +building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and +consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do +this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs +to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some +existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to +come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a +solution. Enter the Common +Platform Enumeration dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to +software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are +mapped to CVEs in the National +Vulnerability Database, allowing me to look up know security +issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to +locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university. +This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the +NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).
+ +To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE +name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to +check out, one could look up +cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3 +in NVD and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries. +The most recent one is +CVE-2010-0001, +and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete +list of affected versions is provided.
+ +The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing +for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a +small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs +affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs +with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open +security issues out.
+ +Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD +information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as +possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice +RHEL is providing +a +map from CVE to CPE, indicating that they are using the CPE +information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.
+ +To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some +time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with +the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are +some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several +CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that +Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve +the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with +someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and +corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be +established soon.
+ +An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package +mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example +RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and +this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries +for their packages.
+ +Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog +posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short +update in English.
+ +The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work +done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port +of the British service +FixMyStreet up and running, +and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been +organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors +to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with +mySociety on what to develop, +and in February the development took place. Most of it involved +converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British +easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get +running in any country by now. The Norwegian +FiksGataMi is using +OpenStreetmap as the map +source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and +support for this had to be added/fixed.
+ +The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend +polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is +running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000 +problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android +and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the +public infrastructure.
+ +Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without +such service?
+ +The Norwegian FiksGataMi +site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because +I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10 +years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get +security support for a few years.
+ +The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules +that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these +modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up +their own FixMyStreet clone +in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules +missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group +will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI, +Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide, +Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma, +Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl, +URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet +easier in the future.
+ +Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules +installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name' +and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me +with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really +do not have time for.
+ +While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions +mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its +desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my +parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the +issues.
+ +I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to +implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to +do this in Debian we would have a source.
+ +-
+
+
- Simple GUI based upgrade of packages. When there +are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar +indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade +tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents +through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required, +this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last +time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in +Debian. + +
- Simple handling of missing Firefox browser +plugins. When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not +currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system +should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type, +and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages +advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the +Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found, +it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime +type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free +license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it +more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and +make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and +not the browser for any missing features. + +
- Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format +handlers. When the media players encounter a format or codec +it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system +should search for a package that would add support for it. This +happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection +and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser +plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a +gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to +the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while +explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu. + +
- Better browser handling of some MIME types. When +displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to +start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same +in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I +know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the +latter behaviour. + +
There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite +upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade, +it do not matter much.
+ +I really hope we could get these features in place for the next +Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several +maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.
+ +In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that +are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them +than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of +problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first +is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to +runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to +the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes +run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before +the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a +machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is +that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/ +directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in +parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.
+ +So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the +scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is +presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else +should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like +lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from +the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d +scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved +out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single +user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.
+ +Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions +etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no +need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt +is presented.
+ +As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep +Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the +scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency +order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved, +and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been +moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure +that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep +the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it +comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with +scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending +on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo +package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work +on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will +find time to push this forward.
+ +Wouter Verhelst have some +interesting +comments and opinions on my blog post on +the +need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian and my blog post about +the +default KDE desktop in Debian. I only have time to address one +small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the +misunderstanding he bring forward:
+ ++Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a +single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line; +this runs rcS and rc1 scripts) ++ +
This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode +and booting into runlevel 1 is the same. I am not surprised he +believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible +thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken, +runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user +mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit +hard to explain.
+ +Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab: +"~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin". This means the only thing that is +executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot +state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode, +only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process +enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state +is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1 +and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which +runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel +1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the +mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot +mode).
+ +This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first +time into single user mode, the following commands are executed: +"/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin". When booting into +runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "/etc/init.d/rc +S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin". A problem show up when +trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services +are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an +unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting +after visiting single user mode.
+ +A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of +scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2 +to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly +stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not +started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels +2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts +out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not required to get a +functioning single user mode during boot.
+ +I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system, +and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates +from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.
+ +At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is +around 1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors +when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers +up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the +vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the +firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the +firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the +university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine. +For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide +the tools to do so.
+ +To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to +fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of +our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers +so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
+ +On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find +an XML file +with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing +which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP +site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then +download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from +within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to +be activated on the first reboot.
+ +This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on. +Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all +servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
+ +
+#!/usr/bin/perl
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
+BEGIN {
+ # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
+ my %rhelmodules = (
+ 'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
+ );
+ for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
+ eval "use $module;";
+ if ($@) {
+ my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
+ system("yum install -y $pkg");
+ eval "use $module;";
+ }
+ }
+}
+my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
+
+upgrade_dell();
+
+exit 0;
+
+sub run_firmware_script {
+ my ($opts, $script) = @_;
+ unless ($script) {
+ print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
+ exit 1
+ }
+ print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
+
+ if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
+ print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
+ } else {
+ print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
+ }
+}
- 
+sub run_firmware_scripts {
+ my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
+ # Run firmware packages
+ for my $dir (@dirs) {
+ print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
+ opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
+ while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
+ next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
+ run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
+ }
+ closedir $dh;
+ }
+}
+
+sub download {
+ my $url = shift;
+ print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
+ system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
+}
+sub upgrade_dell {
+ my @dirs;
+ my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
+ chomp $product;
+
+ if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
+
+ # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
+ system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
+
+ my $tmpdir = tempdir(
+ CLEANUP => 1
+ );
+ chdir($tmpdir);
+ fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
+ system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
+ my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
+ # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
+ my $fwopts = "-q";
+ if (@paths) {
+ for my $url (@paths) {
+ fetch_dell_fw($url);
+ }
+ run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
+ } else {
+ print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
+ print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
+ }
+ chdir('/');
+ } else {
+ print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
+ print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
+ }
+}
+sub fetch_dell_fw {
+ my $path = shift;
+ my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
+ download($url);
+}
+
+# Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
+# firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
+# machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
+sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
+ my $filename = shift;
+
+ my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
+ chomp $product;
+ my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
+
+ print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
+
+ my $xml = XMLin($filename);
+ my @paths;
+ for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
+ my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
+ my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
+ my $oscode;
+ if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
+ $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
+ } else {
+ $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
+ }
+ if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
+ {
+ @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
+ }
+ }
+ for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
+ my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
+
+ # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
+ next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
+
+ my $cpath = $component->{path};
+ for my $path (@paths) {
+ if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
+ push(@paths, $cpath);
+ }
+ }
+ }
+ return @paths;
+}
+
+The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect +it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a +index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the +moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting +outdated.
+ +
+ Created by Chronicle v4.4 +
+ +