Bog Roll :: unix/debian

This week I deployed a Debian GNU/Linux system at work, I'll deploy another one shortly. They should be Microsoft Windows XP systems but it's company policy that only approved Windows systems go on the network, and all company Windows systems MUST have a screen saver with password set.

The problem is that these systems are basically running public displays so the screen saver is required to be off. Therefore it's easier to deploy a Linux system which isn't part of the company wide Windows Domain to solve the problem than it is to use a Windows systems...

Ironic isn't it? Personally I'm always happy to replace Windows systems with Linux ones but in this case the decision was forced onto me by the IT department - which is becoming increasingly less Windows centric...

posted 12:28 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

I'm normally quite conservative with computing, it is more important that it works than it's the latest toy. The only exception is my desktop system, which runs Debian "testing", so periodically things break.

The latest 2.6.30 kernel and 173.13.09 nvidia glx drivers are not compatible. I can either run an older kernel with working drivers or a later kernel with the 2D only open source nvidia drivers which are working fine.

One can understand why my family and my servers at home and work all run Debian "stable" (currently 5.0.2). Once it goes in, it keeps working, Debian stable upgrades are perfectly safe.

posted 22:09 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Some time ago I had a discussion with a colleague about weather Google would release their own OS to complete with Microsoft Windows. I felt and still feel that it's a lot of effort for Google and the pay back isn't worth it.

Evidently Google think that there is some money to be made from their own OS and this week announced that they will be releasing their own Linux distro called "Chrome OS" for ARM and x86 netbooks in 2H 2010.

The media (as usual) failed to realise it's just another Linux distro and like all previous distros it will be based on something existing plus it will have something new to bring to the party. Google are known to be a Debian/Ubuntu fan so it will probably be based on Debian but with a very light-weight Google front end and be designed for a Web 2.0 world.

The good news is that it will probably drag some hardware vendors to the table with hardware specs, as even Google can't tinker with the Linux kernel without sharing their tinkering. As it's being primarily targeted at the ARM processor it will also eliminate the normal Wintel inertia problem that often harms people's migration away from Windows - most netbooks started out on Linux only, but it was easy for Microsoft to push people back to the BSOD that they were use to with little effort.

We live in interesting times...

posted 14:51 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Last week I've spent a lot of time on the train going to and from SAP's training centre in Feltham near Heathrow. I took my copy of Martin Krafft's "The Debian System" with me to have something to read and to show to two of the other students who turned out to be Linux users at home.

It's more than a year since I last read or looked at the book and it refers to Debian Woody/Sarge when currently Debian is at the Etch/Lenny transition. Even so I still found useful stuff in it - a really great book.

posted 19:01 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

A few weeks ago I set up NFS on my home server using version 4 of the protocol rather than the still more common version 3. It all went rather swimmingly and I've been happy.

One feature that NFSv4 has over NFSv3 is that it includes decent security in the form of Kerberos support. I've never used Kerberos before, mostly getting by with SSH, so this seemed like an opportunity to learn something new.

So far no luck, I've had two goes and even with plenty of help from people on the DA.org site I'm still no closer...

posted 22:25 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Sometime ago the Debian team applied a patch to OpenSSL, in doing so they introduced a subtle bug that greatly weakens the strength of any key generated by the OpenSSL package, e.g. SSH or TLS/SSL keys.

Debian have corrected their bug but any cryptographic keys generated in the interim need to be replaced as they are unacceptably weak. A new version of OpenSSL is available from Debian and needs to be installed as a matter of urgency on any Debian Etch or later system. Once OpenSSL has been upgraded all keys need to be regenerated.

The details can be found on the Debian Security site DSA-1571-1. Users of any distro based on Debian such as Ubuntu, should also check to see if they are also affected.

posted 21:48 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Today at work I was given a copy of the Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible. I wouldn't have bought the book myself, the cover art put me off, but as I've been given it I don't have to worry about that. Obviously it's now a bit out of date but if the content is correct it should still be of some interest.

posted 20:21 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Today Debian GNU/Linux testing, code-named "Etch" has become the new stable release of Debian.

It has taken a tad longer than originally expected but it's done now, and Lenny is the new testing version of Debian. The freeze for Etch took place back in December, with a very aggressive release time table.

While Debian 3.0 (Woody) was around for far too long, Debian 3.1 (Sarge) has been stable for a sensible period of time. I've already upgraded most of my production boxes to Debian 4.0 (Etch), just my home server remains on the old version.

posted 17:55 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

The originator of Debian, Ian Murdock, has recently accepted a senior position at Sun Microsoystems. I've long felt that Solaris could gain a lot from being Debianised, and Debian could and should produce a distribution based on the Solaris Kernel.

Ian Murdock's Weblog: Joining Sun

posted 13:07 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

We set up another Linux box at work today, yet another Windows PC evolves into a Debian GNU/Linux box. Following our mathematical naming convention this one is called Möbius.

posted 13:41 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Ink manufacturer and sometimes IT company formerly known as Hewlett-Packard, made $25m in EMEA directly from supporting Debian GNU/Linux on their range of hardware. Apparently there is demand for Debian support from a major hardware vendor and it's lucrative for HP as there are no software costs, as their are with Red Hat, Novell or Microsoft.

• Big Debian Linux Payday For HP.

posted 14:11 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Today I completed my Debian Etch transition from Mozilla.org applications to the debianised alternatives. Thunderbird became Icedove some time ago, Sea Monkey (formerly Mozilla Suite) became Iceape and today Firefox became Iceweasel. It's a bit silly but in the end Debian have made their point and the Mozilla Organization have relented, and the it should not be a problem in the future.

Ironically I'd got annoyed with Thunderbird, so I now use KMail as my primary GUI MUA and I've almost never used Icedove since it went on my system.

posted 20:02 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

At today's Hants/Surrey LUG meeting at Red Hat's UK Headquarters I installed Debian Etch using the GUI installer for the first time. Red Hat have plenty of bandwidth and their training PC was plenty fast enough so the install was swift and painless. I've used the TUI installer which works perfectly well and the graphical version is just as good, only prettier.

I then tried to install the ExamCram2 LPI exam simulator to show a colleague, but that failed miserably. I know I had problems when I installed it at home, but you can install it and it does run okay.

At the end of the day of playing with my newly installed box and showing some nice tools I spotted on Deb-a-day, we flushed the hard-disk so that some Red Hat trainee doesn't turn up on Monday to find the box running Debian.

posted 22:35 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Upgrading a Debian system from one release to another is usually automatic and fairly painless. Over the past week I've done some simulated upgrades using qemu as suggested by Andree Leidenfrost. The simulations all worked, so this weekend I upgraded one of the Sarge desktop systems for real. This may not be the most perfect method, but it did work okay.

First off backup anything that is important and make sure you have a live disk to boot and rescue things if it doesn't go well...

Preparation

Install GPG and some Debian keys if not yet installed.

$ sudo su -
# aptitude install gnupg
# gpg --keyserver keyring.debian.org --recv 4F368D5D
# gpg --keyserver keyring.debian.org --recv 2D230C5F
# gpg --keyserver keyring.debian.org --recv 6070D3A1
# gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv B5F5BBED
# gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv 1F41B907

Update sources.list

Backup your /etc/sources.list file, then update it to etch.

Install a Etch Kernel

This is the point of no return. The initial RAM disk technology used by Etch is different from Sarge, so you must delete the running kernel and install a replacement in one go. This is what your rescue disk may be required for.

# aptitude update
# aptitude install linux-image-2.6.

It will select a bunch of essential tools and the new kernel. It will also warn you about removing a running kernel. Type "Yes" and carry one...

dist-upgrade to Etch

Install the new version of aptitude, add your Debian keys, and then do the upgrade. On my desktop box it took about 30 minutes to download the files, and a further 20 minutes to install everything.

# aptitude install aptitude
# gpg --armor --export  | apt-key add -
# aptitude purge hotplug
# aptitude -f --with-recommends dist-upgrade

Expect that there may be a conflict or two, in my case kdessh and the new OpenSSH packages wouldn't go in. I removed the kde meta-packages, installed OpenSSH, then put back the kde-core package - I didn't want all of kde anyway.

Fixes

If as I do, you use KDE you may have to fix your fonts, as they can come out looking rather ugly. It's a know problem I came across some time ago as I also run Etch on my desktop.

posted 21:42 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^

Today I finished off the tweaks to a new Debian Sarge to Etch upgrade. It's been a mostly painless process. Soon Sarge will be only a pleasant memory.

Though Martin Krafft's book mostly overs the soon to be obsolete Sarge release of Debian, it's still a very worthwhile book, and I'll have to read it again to make sure I absorb all the good stuff in it this time.

posted 20:29 :: /unix/debian :: permalink :: ^