Looking for a backup application for a small home network

I have been looking at backup solution for the last few days and I am stuck, so I am asking for pointers or suggestions.

Since all backup solutions are appropriate to various needs, here are my requirements for my home network (two laptops backup on a very low powered server with a 3TiB HDD):

• Free software/open source cross-platform solution - must be able to backup both Linux and Windows clients
• network backup (to a Debian server, storage on HDD)
• very low CPU and memory needs on the server side (server is a de-underclocked Linksys NSLU2 running Debian armel)
• automatic backups with low maintenance cost and easy setup and recovery (setup once, forget about it)
• easily accessible filesystem based storage
• clients should be smart enough to detect when they aren't in the home network and not try to backup when away
• available in Debian

These are the basic requirements, and bonus-points requirements include:

• Windows clients don't need Cygwin
• optional encryption (for storage)
• default sanity checking for stored files (detection/correction of corrupt backed-up files)
• unduplication (if present, sanity checking is mandatory)
• logarithmic storage is a plus
• Web/nice interface for both client and server is a plus

According to the info I found, candidates for these criteria are Amanda and BackupPC. I like the rsnapshot idea of deduplication and incremental backups, but it's not available for Windows. BackupPC seems to be OK-ish, but it sounds too much like a bunch of Perl scripts and Windows support sounds like an after-thought and I dislike the idea of installing Cygwin just to provide some *nix tools.

I discarded Bacula, because the general impression I got from what I read is that it is hard to set up, has its own storage and has heavy needs for both clients and server. It sounds like overkill.

So what do other people recommend for my setup? Is Amanda OK? Did I get the wrong impression regarding BackupPC?

HOWTO fix git-buildpackage signs with wrong signature

If you have two or more available gpg keys that can be used for the same identity (e.g.: 'John Doe <john@doe.com>') that you might use to add entries to changelogs of packages, you might end up in situations where git-buildpackage or other similar tool might want to sign packages with the wrong key.

It seems debsign (the tool that actually does the signing) just picks up the first key that is still valid (I also have a revoked key) and matches the used identity.

There are many ways to fix this, but the one that will work for most cases is to run this command:

echo 'DEBSIGN_KEYID=0x0123ABCD' >> ~/.devscripts

Of course, you should replace  0x0123ABCD with the keyid which you prefer.

This will create a ~/.devscripts file (if it didn't exist) which will contain the DEBSIGN_KEY variable with the desired value. This file will be sourced by debsign before doing its actual work, so it will do the right thing when ran.

There are also git-buildpackage specific fixes like defining builder in the [DEFAULT] section of ~/.gbp.conf and passing '-k0x0123ABCD' to debuild something like:

[DEFAULT]
builder = debuild -i -I -k1234ABCD
...

But that probably gets ugly if you use a custom builder.


P.S.: I have just deleted my old key 0xDD1F1F9F since I won't be using it anymore. I don't remember where I put the revocation certificate, but I'll revoke the key, once and if I find the revocation certificate. Otherwise, it will expire in July, next year.

From now on, I am going to use only the key 0xE3E083A1 to which I even added a photo and some newer identities and updated with a few signatures I got during DebConf 9.

HOWTO: Things to remember about cowbuilder

Here are a few things to remember about cowbuilder:

If you run cowbuilder through sudo, and you want to build a source package whose result should be available to the user who initiated the build, then

• you should have "BUILDRESULTUID=the_user's_id" in ~/.pbuilderrc, and
  
• you might want to invoke cowbuilder with

'sudo cowbuilder --build the_pack_to_build.dsc --buildresult destination_dir_for_build_results'

If you want to login into a chroot environment in which you'd like to see part of your directory alongside the unpacked source tree of your package, then invoke cowbuilder with

sudo cowbuilder --login --bindmounts /path/to/the/dir/you/want

Your base.cow directory can be updated/changed manually with

sudo cowbuilder --login --save-after-login

You can update the base.cow directory with

sudo cowbuilder --update

 That's about it.

Also, noteworthy tip: ccache might not work correctly in the cowbuilder chroot.

xorg-macros in Debian

If you are looking for xorg-macros in Debian, you should install xutils-dev.

HOWTO: GIMP - create a text-with-halo effect

A small tutorial I made about an effect I used in the previous interviews (in English), so, for consistency, I had to recreate it, even after Kino was no longer available in Debian Wheezy.



I'll probably upload more videos like this about cinelerra, pitivi, gimp, audacity and other software I use for the work I do for our „Sceptici în România”/ „Skeptics in Romania” podcast (The podcast is in Romanian, but we are preparing also a project for the international audience, too).

And in case you are wondering, yes, this podcast is part of the reasons I wasn't able to do any work for Debian lately!

What's common between Windows 7 and GNOME 3 / gnome-shell?

Update: I managed to make sound work. For some weird reason, a mute switch option of some the many (and who knows how useful) switches of my sound card was enabled. Now the damn thing works. Did I mention that since I did the upgrade all my sound cards (I have a USB sound card, too) have listed as available inputs all the inputs of my internal sound card (mic, front mic, line in, CD, etc.) in Audacity? That makes for a very confusing and loooong sound input sources list! The upside is that I can finally record clips from televisions that do not provide such a feature and FastVideoDownload doesn't handle.

I also seem to have found a possible fix for the caps-ctrl issue in Xfce4 (obviously, setting "-option ctrl:swapcap" in ~/.Xkbmap, instead of that Alt modifier).

---

As I said in my previous post, I will tell you what do GNOME 3 and Windows 7 have in common.

Before everything else, I want to make it clear that when I am saying GNOME 3, I am referring to Debian Wheezy's GNOME 3, since I recently upgraded from Squeeze on my laptop. I'll probably drop a line or two about that, too.

First, I'll tell you about the (boring, probably for many) experience with Windows 7. As I said before, my new job requires me to use a Windows machine, so up until a few months ago I was using Windows XP with some additional software and tweaks to make it usable. Then came the Windows 7 „upgrade”. I am using quotes since the more appropriate term would be „fresh installation on a new partition”, not even close to what Debian users are used to call an upgrade.

So after a fresh Windows 7 installation, my first shock was the fact there was NO Quick Launch*. Some of you might be laughing, but I had never used Windows 7 up until then, just saw it on a laptop of a friend of mine (Ovidiu, one of the guys with whom I am doing this podcast, went to Denkfest with, and made these interviews). That was the first shock. Initial discussions about this with Windows users lead me to believe Quick Launch was dead and for some unexplained reason, I believed them. Later, much later, a week ago, to be precise, I found out that you can bring back the Quick Launch through some convoluted way**. Up until that point I had to have some icons pinned to the task bar, but some others on the desktop (and I hate that) because some of them, like Cygwin, if pinned, would start a cmd console, since Win 7 pins the process, not the starting script.

Among other things which broke in Win 7 and used to work fine in XP, the Virtual Dimension application which provides me with a virtual desktop, was the first one which was broken. I have been using a liniar 4 desktops-wide virtual desktop for over 5 years and I am worthless and inefficient if all my apps are on the same desktop. Mail application is always on the first desktop, work and file managers are on the second, the third is for extras and multimedia editing while the fourth is my gateway to the internet, containing the browser, instant messenger, or whatever.

The shortcuts I use to get to the various desktops are Win+1 ... Win+4 keyboard shortcuts, but the M$ Evil Empire decided that those shortcuts are going to start or bring foreward the first, second and so on applications pinned on the task bar. And you can't change those shortcuts***. Nor is disabling just those possible since they are all disabled through a huge switch which disables ALL Win+x keyboard shortcuts, among which Win+E (file expolrer) and Win+D (Show Desktop) were also. Luckly, Win+L (lock screen) was not disabled. So I disabled al those Win+ shortcuts, since I need virtual desktops.

Now, imagine if I had to start a Cygwin console and I had all sorts of apps open! Win+D was disabled, so I had to minimize the apps covering the desktop shortcut for Cygwin, click on the icon to start it, bring back the minimized windows and go on with my work. What a waste of clicks, mouse movement, energy and time, just because some dudes thought a Quick Launch-like feature was useless****.


You might wonder already what do those '*' sings mean. Well, sadly, that's what GNOME 3 / gnome-shell and Windows 7 have in common.

Gnome 3 was a shock for me. An empty desktop right after upgrade. No panels, no shortcuts*, no power indicators, no wicd indicator, no virtual desktops, no desktop icons, (I have a few dirs and docs there). Sounds like an Evil Empire decision, doesn't it?

Luckly I have been using Tilda as my always-ready console and I could fire up iceweasel from the console in order to understand where my panel disappeared.

I then realised that the upgrade brought me Network Manager, that app which wicd replaced. As a consequence, I had no working wlan since Network Manager made sure to mess up with the network manager I chose.

After looking through the documentation of Network Manager and realising I either had it set up to leave wlan0 alone or I didn't understood NM's documentation, I simply stopped the service, which let Wicd its job flawlessly.

The first thing I searched was „Gnome 3 panel” or something of that sort and I was confronted with the obvious option to appeal to the Forced Fallback Mode which was disabled. I figured I either had an old version, or Debian disabled this feature (hoping they provided an alternative). There was also the option to conform to this convoluted way of working** with Actions and such uselessness like that. I still wonder, what is the purpose of the „Favourites” bar on the left side, since it's accessible only after wasting a lot of mouse movement and time? For Joe's Pesci sake, I use focus under mouse just to avoid needless mouse and keyboard manipulation. Why? Why? WHY would I want every time I need to start or SWITCH to another application to move the mouse to the upper-left corner then take my hands off the mouse to type, move the mouse downwards or move across the whole width of the screen to get to my beloved virtual desktops and pick the app I want?

Making a long story short, after even trying XFCE4 (which for some unknown reason resets almost immediately my keyboard layout to the default layout with the Caps on Caps, instead of my preferred and set Ctrl on Caps - yes, it's global), I managed to find GNOME Shell Frippery** which made the experience better.

Later I found out that GNOME 3's file manager, Nautilus, has decided that an „up on level” button is useless, since the default is to use that uncopy-pastable button location bar instead of a sane text location bar. And it seems the GNOME developers decided this*** and I should conform to it.

To add insult to injury, those icons on my old panel are apparently useless**** and even in the fallback version I can't get them back. Or so the GNOME developers decided.

At some point this sunday, don't know how or why this change happened, producing sound was impossible. I know the problem is pulseaudio since when I kill the pulseaudio daemon from the console I can play audio. BTW, great timing, just when I needed sound the most, before releasing episode 32 of our podcast (yay, I reaslised that xfce just decided to reset my caps to be caps, after setting to ctrl a few minutes ago).

I know I praised pulseaudio when I first tried it, but failing to make it work out of the box or after some tinkering is a deal breaker for me, so I removed it. Now I find it that is a default in GNOME, yet all it manages to do is prevent audio from working. At least on my machine.

Other problems? Gnome Power Manager manages to hang and block my session, GNOME managed somehow to fail to start at some point. Yeah, and that sound problem which I didn't fix yet, didn't went away after removing all the pulseaudio packages which could be removed (e.g.: ryhtmbox depends on libpulse0, same do some other apps like audacity, so I couldn't remove all pulse related packages).

I got involved with Debian and GNU/Linux because it was tweakable and customisable, didn't use to force all sorts of option on me and now I find with its increasing popularity it becomes more and more like a product of a corporation which decides to change some things just to change and totally disregadring user experience and uses.

So, in the light of all of these problems I think it's time to probably consider trying KDE. Is it any good lately?

Upgrade from lenny to squeeze - first impressions

Update: I reported the deluge issues and added a new problem about the lack of click on tapping on the touchpad.

---

I know that installation reports and upgrade reports need to be submitted to the BTS, but I just want to point out some issues for people that might hit the same issue on upgrade from lenny to squeeze.

But before that I must say I like the new Debian site(s) look.

Issue number one: When upgrading from lenny's deluge to squeeze's deluge, the new version of the app is quite different from the prevoious version. Here are some things to take into account:

• when starting for the first time the new version it will take ages to check (and probably recalculate some checksums); make sure you don't mind the I/O activity when you start it; a torrent will not be available until this check is done
  
• the new version relies on a client-server model which is disabled if you use the "classic mode" (Edit->Preferences->Interface)
• some features available in the old version are not available in the new version (e.g.: graph for traffic and embedded search function)
• some features are availbale as modules, but there are just a few modules
• when starting the graphical interface in the new mode, don't use the "Start daemon" button, use the "Connect" button. If you start the daemon via the "Start daemon" button the "Connect" button will become "Disconnect" although the client is NOT connected. Using the "Connect" button directly solves the problem.
• There is an ugly side panel (on the left side) which, IMHO has no real function or use, except filtering in the view the active downloads or similar things
• when choosing the place to save a torrent and trying to set that place as the default location, deluge will not remember that setting
• closing now (with the daemon option) the app will close just the client, but the server/daemon will remain in the background, unless is explicitly closed (there is a dedicated menu entry)
  

Issue number 2: I seem to experience some weird glyph/graphic area reshuffling in GNOME (maybe X?) after recovering from hibernate. With a total (according to my current sloppy counting) 5 resumes, things get back to normal, but I suspect the next hibernate-resume cycle will restart the glyph reshuffling cycle.

By glyph/graphic area reshuffling I mean alterations of the shapes of the glyphs (and some areas on the background picture) in such a manner that it seems that within a set of 8/16/N (?) lines are shifted/rotated sideways with some undefined and different ammount each, but in a reproducible manner ("b" will always be doodled in the same way, no matter if is in the word "be" or if is in the word "absurd".

I'll try to provide some picture in the bug report, once I report this issue in BTS.

Update: I reported this in Debian's BTS and upstream (with screenshots, too). I am not convinced the problem is in the kernel since I tried an old kernel and saw the same issue. I suspect X is at fault.

Issue number 3: This is more like a convenience issue. In the past I was using "hibernate" with uswsusp which I understand is now broken beyond repair and replaced by pm-utils. The thing I miss in the hibernate process now is the ability to abort the hibernation process as it was possible in lenny's uswsusp by pressing the backspace key during the storing of the state on disk phase.


Issue number 4: The upgrade process was quite tedious because once I tried upgrading aptitude, python2.6 was pulled in and almost all apps ended up needing upgrading due to the chaining of necessary package upgrades.


Issue number 5: For some weird reason pulseaudio was initially installed making playback of any audio impossible (the apps wanting to emit noises would just freeze but they were TERM-inatable) and later I've seen a default null audio sink was defined for me. Killing pulseaudio and removing the ~/.pulse directory fixed the issue (but I should probably see why pulseaudio didn't work properly in the first place because I suspect the problem will reappear at the next restart - I usually use hibernate).

Issue number 6: Tapping the touchpad no longer results in a click. Maybe some packages got removed? And, no, it is the same when I remove the external mouse, so it is not because of some smart behaviour of that sort.

Otherwise I am quite satisfied with the result of the upgrade. A huge "thank you" to all people involved in the development of squeeze.

Picking up the pieces

Update: After trying KiBi's suggestion to take advantage of this information, I looked for more info on the issue and found this conversation. A git upgrade to the backported git 1:1.7.1-1.1~bpo50+1 version, and git svn rebase started pulling the right stuff in. Yes, I left the svn-remote.svn.rewriteRoot stuff set to the old value and the svn-remote.svn.url to the new value.

Keywords:

Unable to determine upstream SVN information from working tree history

when running git svn reabase

---

As I said yesterday, I am going to come back to being active in Debian.

I remember looking a little at my page on the Debian Wiki and it was clear that it was stale. (I sometimes find it amusing how I presented myself „my name is Eddy Petrisor”.) For some reason now the wiki seems to be down.

Two days ago I tried to get the Wormux/Warmux upstream source but git svn appears not to like the rename although I even modified the .git/config and .git/svn/.metadata, but it still wasn't satisfied and answered in a bad mood with this message (after a long waiting period):

$ git svn rebase
Unable to determine upstream SVN information from working tree history

And, yes, I am aware of the compromise and I changed my password for the project on gna.org.

I guess is better if I try to take a look at the RC bugs for the moment.

Back to coding and similar stuff soon

There has been a quite long hiatus in my Debian activity, first due to my involvement in OpenStreeMap and later due to some personal reasons. This has left the packages I was responsible for basically without a maintainer, even in the case of the game packages which should have been taken care by the Debian Games Team. Sadly, it seems the principle „there are other people which can get involved” was at work in this case.

The good news is that I foresee a period when I will be able to get involved again in Debian work, although I don't know yet how long will it take to start and how long will it last.

The first thing on the agenda should be the Womux - Warmux rename and packaging the latest version of the game.

And yes, currently I am totally clueless about the state of squeeze release and the RC bug count. If I get fast enough back in the Debian work wagon, I'll probably try to help fix a couple of RC bugs here and there.

Busy, busy, busy and lazy me

It has been quite some time since my last post. I have been involved in quite a few things and the last part of 2009 which left no time for anything else. At the begining of 2010, just to set things on a good tone from the new year, I went on a snowboarding vacation to Austria to Kitzbühel.

Presidential campaign and pure irrationality in Romania

I got involved in Remus Cernea's presidential campaign, which was quite a success, considering the media blockade he was subject to. Unfortunately, Romanians seem to more and more indoctrinated, idiotic and gullible, probably thanks to newer generations that come through public schools after 12 years of religious indctrination and media promoting stupidity, non-values, ignorance and so on.

The more I live in this country, the more I realize how I don't feel like fitting in, because I refuse to be a mindless sheep, a moron, listening to anything the news at 5 say (those living in Romania know what I mean). I obstinately form my own ideas and question everything.

Significant event in my life

In September 2009 a life-turning event took place in my life - don't worry, is nothing bad, is pure good - and my eyes opened entirely. I have bacame a sponge trying to know more and more and this has helped me see the world with new eyes, from a new perspective, without lies or preconceptions.

Now I am thingking freely.


I am sorry for not going into details, but I have my reasons. Those who have the eyes and brains to understand what I am talking about, surely have understood by now what has happened to me ;-) .

Snowboarding vacation

At the begining of this year I went with my wife and some friends to Austria for a vacation. Kitzbühel's slopes and conditions were very good (bad points were only due to a couple of areas where snowboarders had to open at least one binding).


View Larger Map

Weather was good and snow was icy only late in the afternoon. I was quite suprised to see stores close at 6pm, but overall, it was a well deserved vacation and I enjoyed it very much. My wife's skills on the board got better, although the third day some beginner skyer broke one of the bindings of my wife's snowboard and she had to use a rental instead. The rental was a quite new Burton board and Otilia got used to it and liked to the extent that we decided the next board we buy (for either of us) will be a Burton.

Did it worth it to drive 1500 km (roughly 1000 miles for the metric system challenged people :-P) for this vacation? Definitely! Did I enjoy the drive? Well, let's just say that the 950km from Kitzbühel to the Romanian border were made in approximately the same time it took us to make the last 550km to Bucharest, while 110km of those last were on the A1 "highway".

I'll probably put some photos from my vacation somewhere on the intenets, but don't hold your breath :-P .

Instead of conclusions

I know I promissed a lot of people to take care of some things like Wormux and some kernel bug debugging and I didn't kept my promise. I appologise, yet I don't expect anyone to accept my appologies. I am still unsure when I'll get back to that. I still care for Debian, yet the day has only 24 hours and I have to use at least 7 of those on sleep.

OpenStreetMap, Debian competes with it

There is no secret that many Debian contributors share their time between various projects, while Debian is one of those projects.

I am no exception: Debian has been competing lately with OpenStreetMap (along with other projects) over my time and, sadly for Debian and fortunately for OSM, OSM has been winning a lot in the last year, since I bought my Nokia E71 phone which has a built-in GPS.

Still, this work on OSM has its own satisfactions, such as managing to map alone (not completely) my home town, Caracal, managing to import municipality data for the entire country, participating in the first mapping party in Romania, exactly one month ago.



Recently I received several invitations to publicly present or advocate these open projects I am involved in and this is really exciting and a huge reward for me.

Is really great to see things moving without me trying to push them, for a change!

Converting flac to mp3 - Soundconverter

Why would I want that? Not because mp3 is in any way superior, is just my phone doesn't support playing FLAC and its audio capabilities are no match for flac.

If you want to convert FLAC to mp3, say to listen to your music on your phone or mp3 player, and you use GNU/Linux I recommend soundconverter.

This is already packaged in Debian and available in etch, lenny, squeeze and sid. It is probably available on Ubuntu and all other major distros out there, so, enjoy.


(This is also a reminder for me. I used soundconverter before, but I was unable to remember which was the application.)

Some Debian work in a long time

I finally managed to do some Debian work in a long time, I managed to package Wormux 0.8.5 for Debian Sid (aka Unstable).

This new version delivers one new binary package, wormux-servers, which contains the stand alone (aka headless) game server and the index server. Unfortunately, the information on setting these up resumes to have a couple of configuration files which are placed in /usr/share/wormux/examples/ .

Also, there's a bug that affects network games when using the construction tool, but fortunately, upstream already has some fixes, including one for this bug, and as soon as 1:0.8.5-1 enters squeeze, I'll prepare a patched version (including some other fixes present in upstream).

Until then, please enjoy Wormux.

Platitude

It appears that some people don't realise that the usual use case for backports is actually using stable and only picking just a handful (at most) of packages from backports, while usually is only one or two packages.

OTOH, testing is about running everything from testing.


Providing automatic backports doesn't mean one is running testing.

I am on the road to DebConf 9

I am writing this from my phone while on the train to the airport. My plane takes off at around 15 o'clock and will arrive in Madrid at around 18 o'clock.

The train to Caceres leaves at 22:25 and arrives around 2 o'clock.

DebConf 9, here I come!

Howto: transitioning to grub2 from lilo (LVM)

Failing to boot my self compiled kernel, I got to the conclusion that, in order to try to debug the initramfs issues I might have I needed to pass easily different break=* parameters on the kernel command line to identify which part of the boot within the initramfs goes awry.

Since I was stuck with lilo and booting with different parameters is a pain when using it, I decided is time to try to install and start using grub-pc, aka grub2.


Documentation on migrating from lilo (or even grub 1) is lacking, even more for cases where you have the /boot directory on LVM, like I do. IMHO, one of the most important things during a migration is to never lose the ability to boot properly your system, which means that it was a must not to write the grub code into the MBR unless I was 100% sure I will be able to boot with grub at the next reboot.


I tried quite a few approaches (installing grub in a partition, trying to create a real /boot partition), but they all failed on way or another, so I will not describe any of those failing methods.


What I found to work was to:

• install the grub-pc package,
• create its configuration and set it up (creates the module files in /boot/grub and /boot/grub/grub.cfg),
• then install the boot code on an external USB stick, while nothing else was to written on the stick (so no data lost from the stick);
• after successfully booting from the USB stick, install the boot image on the internal harddisk's MBR
• reboot and be happy with grub2
  

Note that, although I run lenny, I decided to use sid's grub package since the little information on grub2 that existed pointed to grub-mkconfig which doesn't exist in lenny's grub-common package. Due to some bug I found earlier at work when trying to migrate my workstation, I knew the squeeze version wasn't good either because it failed to properly boot systems with / on LVM. The earliest version that works is 1.96+20090603-2 and installs without problems directly from sid on a lenny system.

Now lets go over the steps in more detail*.

Creating the configuration is a matter of creating the device.map file and grub.cfg:
update-grub


Create a core.img file with support for lvm:
grub-mkimage --output=/boot/grub/core.img ext2 chain pc gpt biosdisk lvm


Install on the MBR of the USB stick (making sure lvm will be visible):
grub-install --modules="pc ext2 biosdisk gpt chain lvm" /dev/sdb


Try to boot from the stick at least one kernel. If it fails, you probably didn't add in the proper modules (see the possible module names in /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc and add the necessary ones in the modules list). If you're dropped into the GRUB rescue prompt, use ls and set to check if the root and prefix variables are set correctly and if the lvm root is visible.

If you manage to boot, you're ready to replace lilo or your old boot loader.


Install on the internal disk MBR:
grub-install --modules="pc ext2 biosdisk gpt chain lvm" /dev/sda


Reboot and be happy.



Please note that you might have added some optional parameters in your old lilo.conf which aren't present in the new /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and you might want to add those. If you want to add some option to all the images, you'll probably want to append those parameters to the value of this variable from /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet"

For instance, since I want to find when sleep stopped working for my machine, I changed mine into:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_sleep=beep ec_intr=0"


After that, run update-grub once more to propagate the changes into /boot/grub/grub.cfg.





* skipping package installation; just use aptitude's text user interface and install grub-pc and grub-common from sid; depending on the system you might need to install grub-efi, grub-ieee1275 or even grub-linuxbios instead of grub-pc

[help] kernel: same config as debian, but mine doesn't boot

Update2: I finally managed to figure out what was wrong. The pristine kernel was missing this patch ata_piix-ich8-fix-native-mode-slave-port.patch which I got from the linux-patch-debian-2.6.18_2.6.18.dfsg.1-24etch2_all.deb package.

Fortunately the package was still available from oldstable, but I am wondering when will snapshot.d.[no] return.

Now I can get back to detecting which is the commit that broke sleep, although I suspect I am searching for 9666f40:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=9666f400

---

Update: I managed to install grub2 and the initramfs fails to find the root because it can't find the "st" volume group. Since I compiled in the kernel the support for LVM, it was clear that any issue that might have appeared was due to the initramfs.

All this seems to be due to this:

(initramfs) dmsetup ls
/proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper found
Is device-mapper driver missing from kernel?
Failure to communicate with kernel device-mapper driver.
/proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper found
Is device-mapper driver missing from kernel?
Incompatible libdevmapper 1.0.2.27 (2008-06-25)(compat) and kernel driver
Command failed

So now I just have to figure out how to patch the old kernels to work or how to install an older libdevmapper.

---

My laptop doesn't resume properly from sleep (although hibernate/resume works), although it worked at some point in the past with 2.6.18 (at least the one in Debian Etch worked, kind of).

In an attempt to git bisect in order to find which was the commit responsible for the regression, I tried to compile the vanilla 2.6.18 Linux kernel with the exact configuration (with minor differences) as the Debian Etch kernel, but I was surprised to see that my make-kpkg compiled kernel didn't boot.

The differences are:

--- config-2.6.18-6-amd64    2009-06-17 00:57:56.000000000 +0300
+++ /boot/config-2.6.18-heidi    2009-06-17 10:36:49.000000000 +0300
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
#
# Automatically generated make config: don't edit
-# Linux kernel version: 2.6.18
-# Thu Dec 25 21:04:29 2008
+# Linux kernel version: 2.6.18-heidi
+# Wed Jun 17 10:36:49 2009
#
CONFIG_X86_64=y
CONFIG_64BIT=y
@@ -1045,7 +1045,7 @@
CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640_ENHANCED is not set
-CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPNP=m
+CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPNP=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_OFFBOARD is not set
@@ -1069,7 +1069,6 @@
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT34X=m
# CONFIG_HPT34X_AUTODMA is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT366=m
-CONFIG_BLK_DEV_JMICRON=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SC1200=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IT821X=m
@@ -1144,7 +1143,6 @@
CONFIG_AIC79XX_DEBUG_ENABLE=y
CONFIG_AIC79XX_DEBUG_MASK=0
CONFIG_AIC79XX_REG_PRETTY_PRINT=y
-CONFIG_SCSI_ARCMSR=m
CONFIG_MEGARAID_NEWGEN=y
CONFIG_MEGARAID_MM=m
CONFIG_MEGARAID_MAILBOX=m
@@ -1360,6 +1358,7 @@
CONFIG_ADAPTEC_STARFIRE_NAPI=y
CONFIG_B44=m
CONFIG_FORCEDETH=m
+CONFIG_DGRS=m
CONFIG_EEPRO100=m
CONFIG_E100=m
CONFIG_FEALNX=m
@@ -1418,6 +1417,7 @@
#
CONFIG_TR=y
CONFIG_IBMOL=m
+CONFIG_3C359=m
CONFIG_TMS380TR=m
CONFIG_TMSPCI=m
CONFIG_ABYSS=m
@@ -2088,7 +2088,6 @@
CONFIG_SENSORS_ATXP1=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_DS1621=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_F71805F=m
-# CONFIG_SENSORS_F75375S is not set
CONFIG_SENSORS_FSCHER=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_FSCPOS=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_GL518SM=m
@@ -2116,7 +2115,6 @@
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83781D=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83791D=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83792D=m
-CONFIG_SENSORS_W83793=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83L785TS=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83627HF=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_W83627EHF=m
@@ -2350,6 +2348,7 @@
CONFIG_VIDEO_BTCX=m
CONFIG_VIDEO_IR=m
CONFIG_VIDEO_TVEEPROM=m
+CONFIG_USB_DABUSB=m

#
# Graphics support
@@ -2737,6 +2736,19 @@
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_GARMIN=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_IPW=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_PDA=m
+CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN=m
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_MPR is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA28 is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA28X is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA28XA is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA28XB is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA19 is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA18X is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA19W is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA19QW is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA19QI is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA49W is not set
+# CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN_USA49WLC is not set
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KLSI=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KOBIL_SCT=m
CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_MCT_U232=m
@@ -2756,6 +2768,8 @@
#
# USB Miscellaneous drivers
#
+CONFIG_USB_EMI62=m
+CONFIG_USB_EMI26=m
CONFIG_USB_AUERSWALD=m
CONFIG_USB_RIO500=m
CONFIG_USB_LEGOTOWER=m
@@ -3002,7 +3016,6 @@
CONFIG_ADFS_FS=m
# CONFIG_ADFS_FS_RW is not set
CONFIG_AFFS_FS=m
-# CONFIG_ASFS_FS is not set
CONFIG_HFS_FS=m
CONFIG_HFSPLUS_FS=m
CONFIG_BEFS_FS=m
@@ -3201,6 +3214,7 @@
CONFIG_SECURITY_NETWORK_XFRM=y
CONFIG_SECURITY_CAPABILITIES=y
# CONFIG_SECURITY_ROOTPLUG is not set
+CONFIG_SECURITY_SECLVL=m
CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX=y
CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_BOOTPARAM=y
CONFIG_SECURITY_SELINUX_BOOTPARAM_VALUE=0

The initramfs simply stopped at an early point with some errors which look really weird taking into account debian kernel's shouldn't be that different from mine (photo described below):

Loading, please wait...
unknown keysym 'endash'
/etc/boottime.kmap.gz:23: syntax error
syntax error in map file
key bindings not changed
usb 1-2: device descriptor read/all, error -84
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: invalid MAP value 2
resume: libcrypt version: 1.4.1
resume: Could not stat the resume device file '/dev/sda5'
            Please type in the full path name to try again
            or press ENTER to boot the system:

I suspect the key map error, the usb error and the resume error to be unrelated to the boot problem.

For some reason I suspect the ata_piix error to be related.


After pressing enter more messages appeared:


The image reads further:

mount: mounting /dev/root on /root failed: No such device
mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such device or directory
mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such device or directory
mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such device or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have /sbin/init.
No init found. Try passing init= bootarg.


(BusyBox prompt follows here).

I looked over the net for some hints, but i wan't able to find a solution.


Since I am forced to use Lilo (/boot on LVM) and I didn't managed to make grub-pc work on this system I am kind of stuck and don't know what to do to make the damn kernel boot.

I am running Debian Lenny, but I am willing to backport a few packages, if ncessary.

Help would be really appreciated.

Solution: E: Cannot get debconf version. Is debconf installed?

If you ever get this error when running apt-get or aptitude:

E: Cannot get debconf version. Is debconf installed?

Then your go to /var/lib/dpkg/ and make sure the files status, available and diversions are not empty. If they are, copy the corresponding *-old file into the proper file and be happy.


This is how they looked in a cowbuilder chroot of mine which refused to build packages (I highlighted the important zero-ed files):

root@twix:/# cd /var/lib/dpkg/
root@twix:/var/lib/dpkg# ls -l
total 280
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 13 2008 alternatives
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 0 Jun 3 13:46 available
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 99608 Jun 28 2008 available-old
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 0 Jun 3 13:46 diversions
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 2501 Feb 28 2008 diversions-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 Apr 13 2008 info
-rw-r----- 2 root root 0 Dec 10 20:27 lock
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 26 2005 methods
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 26 2005 parts
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 47 Feb 28 2008 statoverride
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 0 Feb 28 2008 statoverride-old
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 0 Jun 3 13:46 status
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 115966 Jun 28 2008 status-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 29 2008 updates

Hmm, that looks fixable ...

root@twix:/var/lib/dpkg# cp available-old available
root@twix:/var/lib/dpkg# cp diversions-old diversions
root@twix:/var/lib/dpkg# cp status-old status
root@twix:/var/lib/dpkg# ls -l
total 508
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 13 2008 alternatives
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 99608 Jun 4 16:10 available
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 99608 Jun 28 2008 available-old
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2501 Jun 4 16:10 diversions
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 2501 Feb 28 2008 diversions-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 Apr 13 2008 info
-rw-r----- 2 root root 0 Dec 10 20:27 lock
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 26 2005 methods
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 26 2005 parts
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 47 Feb 28 2008 statoverride
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 0 Feb 28 2008 statoverride-old
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 115966 Jun 4 16:10 status
-rw-r--r-- 2 root root 115966 Jun 28 2008 status-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 29 2008 updates


Now it works :-)

Kernel issues - Debian and pristine

Ever since I bought this laptop I was quite content with it running Debian GNU/Linux (Lenny) and, except the sleep functionality not working (bug reported, but I have no answer for any new approaches) I have no other major issues.


Actually, the problems are partially solved since I am in a "pick your favourite bug" situation:

• with the 2.6.26 kernel from Debian the information about the power source is incorrect (kernel bug which goes away for me right since 2.6.27)
  
• while with a newer (>=2.6.27) pristine kernel, power information is accurate, but the entire bluetooth stack (init.d scripts and apps) needs a restart after a hibernate/resume cycle to work again; I added my info in the corresponding upstream bug and I hope it gets fixed

Still, I am really curious, since the Debian Kernel Team policy is to accept only patches accepted upstream, theorecally that would mean newer upstream kernels should work wrt that bluettoth issue, assuming this isn't a regression (it doesn't look like one from my experience).

So what is present in Debian kernels that isn't in the pristine ones that makes BT work afer resume? If you know the answer, please add it to the bug report.


On the Debian side of the kernel, which are the chances that newer Lenny kernels will include the power fixes necessary for MSI laptops to report power related info correctly? I know, I know, I should probably report a bug, but I want to know first if there will be a lenny-n-half release, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

svn-buildpackage is now orphaned

I have decided that is high time to declare svn-buildpackage orphaned since many people are replying on it to be useful, but nobody cared enough to answer to the RFH Eduard Bloch made some 3 years ago.

I know it would have been better if I would have asked a request for adoption, but, honestly, the package didn't had a maintainer in the last year and that would have been lying to everybody.

The package is quite important and I would hate to see it leave the official archive since many people do need it and use it regularly (I know for sure the GNOME, Perl and the Debian Games Team use it) and I have enjoyed working on the package while I was motivated.

The code is maintained in SVN and the trunk can be viewed at:

http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/collab-maint/deb-maint/svn-buildpackage/trunk/

and can be checked out with any of these commands:

# read-only copy
svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/collab-maint/deb-maint/svn-buildpackage/trunk svn-buildpackage

# read write, if you have an account on alioth.debian.org:

svn co svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/svn/collab-maint/deb-maint/svn-buildpackage/trunk


Also, note that the package has several features which the new maintainer(s) should be aware of and must make sure they all work when changing the code. Also, there are some things to remember:

• there is support for native and non-native packages
• non-native packages' repo can be a complete repo (with an upstream branch) or an incomplete repo (just the differences from the upstream - most times the debian directory, but not always)
• there is an interactive and a non-interactive mode, both have to work properly
• the packages can be stored in the repo under 2 different layouts and both have to work since they are both used; support for an arbitary layout would be great and I have a few ideas about how to implement that, so please contact me if you want to work on that
• team maintainance workflow MUST be supprted and should be one of the highest concerns for the maintainer; this means that being able to work on a new package without issuing more than one command to have all necessary stuff for the build, package upgrades to be done is the target to reach for (currently the situation is a lot better than it was in the past)
• there is on misfeature from the past that should be finally dealt with - something that was supposed to work as a cache ended up working like an override; meanwhile the effect for new packages/checkout has been minimised, but the code could do better at dealing with old checkouts affected but this (drop the old file name for the overrides, use a new one and scream when the old file name is encountered)
• 0.6.24 is waiting for an upload
• a test frame is missing and would be most welcome; I already started working on this based on the git test frame, but didn't managed to have a good-enough-to-publish code
  

These being said, I am really hoping svn-buildpackage will find a new maintainer since it deserves a lot more attention than I am providing. Don't forget, 0.6.24 is wating for an upload already.

---

Update: Neil Williams answered and agreed to take over maintenance, but he doesn't usually use svn-inject and svn-upgrade, so somebody taking care of those would be needed. Ironically, those two scripts are the ones in the worst shape of the three main scripts.