As usual if I m trying to solve some issue there is a technology that solves it.
But it s in early stage of development, poorly packaged, stable versions lack most of the features, and basically it s recommended to use git snapshots and to patch all the software that is going to use it. I m talking about usbredir and SPICE.

It was almost 6 years in NetArt company (probably known better as nazwa.pl).
Time for changes. Starting on May I ll be working for Akamai. Wish me luck few hundreds of servers against almost 100 thousands looks like a real challenge

How about switch translations to Weblate? Maybe it s time to move on some more user friendly translation system? I believe Michal iha (cheers!) is going to help us (as a community) to make changes relevant to Debian s infrastructure.

If you want to connect to some device by wire make sure it has this wire plugged in.

Back from Banja Luka was the DebConf bus trip to Zagreb. Even though the train connection should allow to catch the night train to M nchen, the time in Zagreb was too short to be sure (as with the other Bosnian track, two trains per day - taking a earlier train was not possible if I wanted to get at least a bit of sleep). So, I went on the DebConf-bus to Zagreb, and arrived there on time. Border checks into Hrvatska were a bit more time consuming then in the other direction - too much traffic but nothing else. In Zagreb, I dropped off my luggage at the train station again, and then went by tram to the parts of the city I hadn't been before (and which were more normal parts, and not the tourist-areas). Incidently I also experienced tram track works, and so had to switch to the bus; however, information was so bad that not only I didn't notice it (which wasn't too bad and unexpected - I plan with enough time as tourist) but also locals were taken by surprise. (Many parts of) Zagreb appears to have many too wide roads, with pedestrians pushed away. Not too uncommon for some cities here as well. But sad to see if public space is not created with humans in mind. This used to be modern in the 60ies, whereas it should have now advanced to center around humans again. If one compares the situation how one feels while standing in a too far road (where the wind blows easily cold) with a decent road in any city center, one could see the difference. But as said, many german cities make the same mistake. After arriving back at the train station, this was in time for taking the night train. Obviously there were many DDs on board. Passport checks in Hravatska went smooth but with many boarder guards. The train had an extra stop not in the official timetable so that they didn't leave their territory armed. On arriving in Slovenija the train had to stop some time. Border checks were quite strict (as this was entering the european union) and time consuming, e.g. partly cover sheets of the train were removed. After entering Slovenija the reminder of the trip was uneventful (or at least: ignored while sleeping), so the trip ended in M nchen as planned. Summarising it was an interesting and nice trip. I had no problem using public transport in spite of the warnings before. Of course, as always while traveling in foreign countries one should expect the country to be more different to home than just temperature and language - i.e. one should expect a bit of the unexpected, and be able to cope with. But that's true for any place one is going to. And these areas are worth another visit another time. I also learned more about "local" history (whereas local covers everything within 1000 kilometers around M nchen). However, the really bad thing is when comparing Hrvatska and Bosna i Hercegovina to see how much more Bosna i Hercegovina could have advanced within the last 16 years, but didn't due to incompetent management. Thinking that the same ways of obstructing decision-making happens in this country (and the european union as a whole) as well (but isn't as visible - we hadn't had a war, but also not much advances in our infrastructure) makes me more sad. Having said this, I still enjoyed the tour quite much - it was a good decision to have done it.

Sarajevo gave a rainy look the next morning. That wasn't too bad, as I was able to walk around a bit without it being too crowded. Incidently I also saw the corner where Franz Ferdinand was shot in 1914, which started the first world war - Europe has many links beyond todays state borders, in good and bad times. It's not like transeuropean politics (or communications) are something too new.
Bazar in Sarajevo
Franz Ferdinand was shot here in 1914
Trolley buses
River, tram and city
nice building hidden by cars - should our cities be dominated that way?
more of the old city After having spent the morning exploring the old part of Sarajevo and along the river, I used the time after hotel checkout to use the tram link and take a few more pictures. I arrived at the train station as planned, but the train I wanted to take didn't go that day (in spite of checking it within the hotel in the morning). So, I ended with another bus trip (this time unplanned) to Banja Luca. Again, bus trips are worse than train trips - one cannot move in the vehicle, and there are delays for every stop. The events in Banja Luca are discussed elsewhere, so nothing about that here (except that DebConf was great - I enjoyed it very much).

During daytime, I finally bought a train ticket from Mostar to Sarajevo. The ticket for the 100 kilometers trip was 10 KM, which are 5 Euro.
Mostar train station Right on time the train entered the station. However, we had a 30 minutes delay there without any obvious cause or communications. This train was (as well as the previous in Hrvatska) between full and overcrowded, in spite of the bad connections. I however learned soon why these carriages shouldn't go to other parts of europe: The window in our compartment was replaced, so it couldn't be opened any more (and we had no means of fresh air). That wasn't as bad as it sounded, as the train doors weren't locked, so someone opened the door while the train was moving and "locked" it with paper so we could get fresh air (and this configuration stayed all the way to Sarajevo at least, so it was that way for about 4 hours). After leaving Mostar, there were soon signs between the train and the river that the area was mined, so one shouldn't go there. The train drives through beautiful landscape. After it got dark, the electric light within the train was not working, so we had (at best) our mobil phones to provide us with light (strange modern times).
Mine warning between the train tracks and the River Neretva In spite (or: because?) of these technical issues, I meet a few local people from Sarajevo and from all parts of Europe. So the train trip proved to be nice and entertaining, and I learned a bit about government issues there. Along the tracks, the signals were non-functional. The trains were directed only by flags (and hand-lights) from personal. On entering any station the train had to slow down till I got shown the relevant flag or hand-light that allowed it to leave the station again. Another heritage from the last war. With due delay, the train arrived in Sarajevo. Due to missing information at the tram stop, I didn't know that the trams to the train station didn't run that late (but I had the information that there would be trams if the train was on time). As it was late, I shortcut that by taking a taxi to the hotel (if I were to arrive in Sarajevo again, I would walk one tram station to the main line - but well, travelling is also about experiences). Unplanned that evening was also the Sarajevo film festival, with one stage opposite of the hotel window. As this was almost closing down when I arrived in Sarajevo, nothing to worry but to enjoy.

The next day was reserved for seeing Mostar. I could leave my luggage at the hotel, so I first went to the train station. The train station was rather large and impressive, in spite of only two trains per day and direction. However, the train station was closed at that time, so no ticket purchase yet. Into the historic city of Mostar: Visiting the Ottoman House was interesting, as well as climbing on the tower of one mosque. In the city, many houses still had effects of shelters and gun shots from the war. (At least) One of the trees in the pedestrian area had many shots as well.
river Neretva within the city of Mostar
City of Mostar from the mosque tower
Ottoman House and bird nests within Seeing Stari Most, the old (or rather: rebuilt) bridge was nice, as well as the masses of people looking there. However, the area with many tourists was quite small. Whereas Stari Most was shoot down during the war, there was a small sister bridge which survived the war damaged but still existed. However, that bridge collapsed during one high water afterwards but had also been rebuilt.
Stari Most with tourists, sister bridge of Stari Most without tourists and houses along the river Below Stari Most, there was an area that looked like a nice picknick-place to look at the bridge and old city, but it was obviously unmaintained since some time. Same at other places: Really great, but many of them unmaintained (as in "too less money", not as in "vandalized"). Soon in the afternoon, most tourists disappeared, so I had the chance to look at the city with only few tourists arround before I had to leave for the train. Walking around Mostar, I meet a few people who were in Germany before, for work, studying or school. The city was quite fascinating - in some way reminded me of 20 years ago. I saw a few more nice vegetables, like kiwis. Mostar wasn't as tourismn-oriented as I would have expected from the monuments available to see there. All people were very nice and friendly, and in the cafes around there was free wifi. A nice place, but also depressing when thinking how much better it could be.

Tired of using curl to debug webapps? Looks quite complicated and for sure it is error prone. This looks much better, and I ve just created package with this useful tool. It s called httpie and is already in NEW queue. Besides simplifying syntax it has also color output which makes results more readable. For the impatient I put this package also on my people.d.o page.

Second half of the second day saw me entering the bus to Mostar in Split. Starting in Split, the bus was rather empty. As the bus went along the coast in Hrvatska to Ploce, it filled with more and more people (and was in many traffic jams). In Ploce, it met the train station which is in an industrial area. On this trip, one could see the disadvantages of busses: Not only one couldn't get up and meet new people, but also the bus needs to leave the main road for every stop, so a stop has a drastic effect on the speed of the connection. (However, as this bus was after the last train of the day, I had little choice; going from Zagreb to Mostar via Split in one day with minimum bus is basically impossible unless the train to Split is strictly on time.) From Ploce, the bus went parallel to the train tracks. The boarder checks were quite easy to pass - except for one passenger who needed the passport stamped, but the stamp had to be fetched from the office first. That took a few minutes, but nothing too bad either. On entering Bosna i Hercegovina, I had the feeling of a rather dark country, at least compared to Hrvatska (but might be influenced as well that it was just getting dark, and I was in Zagreb on the previous evening). The journey for this day ended in Mostar, where I found a warm welcome in the hotel (which was some 10 minutes away from the bus and train station). An additional difficulty was that the hotel booking system I used to book hotels uses Google maps, but different to openstreetmaps, Google maps doesn't really know much about Bosna i Hercegovina.

On the second day, I entered the train to Split early in the morning. The train was a bit crowded, but having a seat reserved helped. Unfortunatly I knew that kind of train already from home (here known as 612), and changing colours didn't make it a better train.
Train from Zagreb to Split in Gra ac After leaving Zagreb, the train went through nice countryside. After some time hills started - with given-up houses, walls, areas. As I learned in the meantime, this track used to be not the main line to Split but a backland-line. However, since the last war (the one from 1991-1995), the shorter and faster direct line is still cut. In Knin one could still see the reminders of the direct line which was electrified.
Landscape from within the train The railway was a mixture of historic operations (with many people, changing switches by going there and by hand and using flags instead of signals) and directly into the 21nd century with electronic signal boxes just being built.
train junction in Perkovi In spite of "the train should be an alternative to cars and busses"-speeches, as there was only one (and overcrowded) train suiteable for going to Split, priorities seem to be elsewhere (not too uncommon for politics on public transport in Europe). Also, there was obviously much more money put into the streets than into the trains. The journey to Split should have taken about 6 hours, but the train in the opposite direction was a bit late, so I arrived late about 30 minutes. Directly on the platform there was a crowd of people trying to let appartments to tourists etc. Ignoring that, I first got rid of my luggage in the train station, bought the bus ticket for the next leg, and as having planned for late trains still had ample of time to see Split. This was my first "southern" target on this journey, so I could say Hi to fig trees (and their smell as they were blooming at that time). Split itself has an historic center (being dated back to the Romans). One could also go up a hill and have an overview over both Split and the Adria. All in all I found Hrvatska being compareable to other nice parts of Europe: Many tourists, overcrowded, and prices similar to Germany. Usage of public transport by tourists seems strange, and mostly only done by interrailers.

I ve just started to use it. Next time I m able to show you how stable is Zenbook under Linux. Right now it s not helpful:
fenio@zenbook ~ $ downtimes
Maybe the system has not been down yet?
downtimes: can not open /var/lib/downtimed/downtimedb: No such file or directory
fenio@zenbook ~ $
Next time it will really

Just got mail about it:

Accepted:
reaver_1.4-2.debian.tar.gz
to main/r/reaver/reaver_1.4-2.debian.tar.gz
reaver_1.4-2.dsc
to main/r/reaver/reaver_1.4-2.dsc
reaver_1.4-2_amd64.deb
to main/r/reaver/reaver_1.4-2_amd64.deb
reaver_1.4.orig.tar.gz
to main/r/reaver/reaver_1.4.orig.tar.gz Override entries for your package:
reaver_1.4-2.dsc extra net
reaver_1.4-2_amd64.deb extra net Announcing to debian-devel-changes@lists.debian.org
Closing bugs: 653758 Thank you for your contribution to Debian.

Now let s see how portable is it

These articles cover my way to DebConf 11 through Hrvatska and Bosna i Hercegovina. After telling my initial plans to go by train (mostly) and bus (where it couldn't be avoided) on IRC, I was warned that public transport is quite bad and unreliable. Also, as I live in M nchen, of course this part of Europe was always known as "near" and "could be visited any time" (which means "one never gets to it"; and I can still remember the time when it was Yugoslavia - there are and always were many people living here from that part of Europe; in fact, it's nearer than some parts of Germany). I plan to publish more parts of my way within the next days. Already at home I also learned that most trains in Hrvatska (and all in Bosna i Hercegovina) are not part of the usual train information system, so it was a bit more advanced to find out the appropriate connections. And in both countries there are only a few trains running, so one shouldn't miss a train ("few" means e.g. two per day and direction - but one at most unappropriate times, so really only one suiteable). The first day saw me boarding the Suburban train (S-Bahn) at my usual station, changing platforms and trains at M nchen Ost station and then I was sitting in a train to Zagreb. Nothing strange there, except that the coach I had an seat reserved in was missing. I learned later on that it happens more often that the coach from Serbia is not there because it's technically too unfit to send it to Germany -- and usually, there will be more coaches added in Ljubljana. Border checks were uneventfull but at the slovenijan border my passport was stamped (not sure why, didn't happen on the way back).
Train in sterreich After arriving in Zagreb and dropping off my luggage in the hotel, I first got some Kunas and then bought my ticket to Split for the next day (as a direct ticket from M nchen to Split was not available). After having done that, I took a brief tour through Zagreb until it became dark, with visiting some of the tourist places.
Zagreb

One of the most popular backup solution under Linux is Bacula, but it s quite complicated to setup. The same for Amanda.
Since my last sponsored upload we ve got another alternative in Debian. It s called burp. Let s enumerate its features as of version 1.3.0:

• Server mode runs on Unix-based systems.
• Client mode runs on Windows and Unix-based systems.
• Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) support (Windows XP R2 and newer).
• Windows 32bit and 64bit support.
• Delta differencing with librsync.
• Network backups.
• Backs up and restores files, directories, symlinks, hardlinks, fifos and nodes.
• Storage and network compression using zlib.
• Ability to continue interrupted backups.
• Client/server communications encryption with SSL.
• Client side file encryption (note: this turns off delta differencing).
• Scheduling.
• Email backup success/failure notifications.
• A single daily backup summary email.
• A live ncurses monitor on the server.
• Fifo read/write support.
• Pre/post backup/restore client scripts.
• Backups of Solaris ZFS snapshot send/receives.
• Linux and FreeBSD acl/xattr support.
• Multiple retention periods (e.g, keep 1 backup per day for 7 days, 1 backup per week for 4 weeks, 1 backup per 4 weeks for a year).
• Network rate limiting.
• Storage data deduplication.
• Automatic client upgrade.

Sounds good and this project is only 1 year old! Author claims that setup is much easier than with Bacula. Let s find out is that truth Since we ve got this software in Debian installing it on unstable is as simple as apt-get install burp .
Both client and server came from the same binary package. Now let s configure server side. Well in fact we just have to run it, so just change RUN=no to RUN=yes in /etc/default/burp and launch it using /etc/init.d/burp start . Now the client side. If the client is on the same machine then you re ready. Yes you re ready! Let s do our first backup: Yes. By default it is so extremely simple! Of course this way we can make backup of /home (that s default) to /var/spool/burp (also default location) but you can easily change this.
For the simplest scenario (backing up laptop to remote server) all I had to change was server = 127.0.0.1 in /etc/burp/burp.conf on the client side. Burp comes with handy tool called burp_ca and it simplifies setting up encrypted backups. In fact there is step by step howto in documentation.
Other options are quite self explanatory and well documented in both client and server config files that came with the package. Happy backuping!

That s sad. Hardware that was supported sometime ago, it s now unsupported.
I have no idea how to install Debian on Sony Vaio laptop.
Tried all possibilities.

Every 7 years with the Sch fflertanz the end of the Black Death in 1517 is celebrated. After lots of people died, everyone was too scared to go out in the streets again, even after the Black Death was gone. The Sch ffler (cooper = people who traditionally build barrels) started to cheer the people in Munich up with their dance, and made them go on the streets and start their normal lifes again. This is one of the few local traditions that even survived the modern times. The barrel is signed with "Sch fflertanz 2012" and "Zur Erinnerung an das Pestjahr 1517" = "To remind of the Black Death-year 1517", and should remind us that even in the darkest times, there is still hope and life goes on.

I wrote some simple script to automate building kernels for Zenbook laptops. It downloads and apply Bluetooth patch, RC6 patch, Sentelic drivers, fixes DSDT table, and helps doing compilation of all of that. Hope it s going to be helpful for someone. Here it goes. Should work on most Debian based distros, but as usual. There is NO warranty

Seems that Intel developers eventually created patch that solves the main issue with Zenbook under Linux.
With Eugeni Dodonov s patch I m finally able to use RC6 feature and have stable system with acceptable battery lifetime. Almost two days without sudden shutdown using that patch Happily there s chance that this patch is going to be included in 3.3.x mainline kernel. Beware that i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 kernel option means something different with patched and vanilla kernel.