Search Results: "aeb"

2 February 2017

Paul Wise: FLOSS Activities January 2017

Changes

Issues

Review

Administration
  • Debian: reboot 1 non-responsive VM, redirect 2 users to support channels, redirect 1 contributor to xkb upstream, redirect 1 potential contributor, redirect 1 bug reporter to mirror team, ping 7 folks about restarting processes with upgraded libs, manually restart the sectracker process due to upgraded libs, restart the package tracker process due to upgraded libs, investigate failures connecting to the XMPP service, investigate /dev/shm issue on abel.d.o, clean up after rename of the fedmsg group.
  • Debian mentors: lintian/security updates & reboot
  • Debian packages: deploy 2 contributions to the live server
  • Debian wiki: unblacklist 1 IP address, whitelist 10 email addresses, disable 18 accounts with bouncing email, update email for 2 accounts with bouncing email, reported 1 Debian member as MIA, redirect 1 user to support channels, add 4 domains to the whitelist.
  • Reproducible builds: rescheduled Debian pyxplot:amd64/unstable for themill.
  • Openmoko: security updates & reboots.

Debian derivatives
  • Send the annual activity ping mail.
  • Happy new year messages on IRC, forward to the list.
  • Note that SerbianLinux does not provide source packages.
  • Expand URL shortener on SerbianLinux page.
  • Invite PelicanHPC, Netrunner, DietPi, Hamara Linux (on IRC), BitKey to the census.
  • Add research publications link to the census template
  • Fix Symbiosis sources.list
  • Enquired about SalentOS downtime
  • Fixed and removed some 404 BlankOn links (blog, English homepage)
  • Fixed changes to AstraLinux sources.list
  • Welcome Netrunner to the census

Sponsors I renewed my support of Software Freedom Conservancy. The openchange 1:2.2-6+deb8u1 upload was sponsored by my employer. All other work was done on a volunteer basis.

11 September 2016

Niels Thykier: Unseen changes to lintian.d.o

We have been making a lot of minor changes to lintian.d.o and the underlying report framework. Most of them were hardly noticeable to the naked. In fact, I probably would not have spotted any of them, if I had not been involved in writing them. Nonetheless, I felt like sharing them, so here goes. User visible changes: In case you were wondering, the section title is partly a pun as half of these changes were intended to assist visually impaired users. They were triggered by me running into Sam Hartmann at DebConf16, where I asked him about how easy Debian s websites were for blind people. Allegedly, we are generally doing quite good in his opinion (with one exception, for which Sam filed Bug#830213), which was a positive surprise for me. On a related note: Thanks Luke Faraone and Asheesh Laroia for getting helping me started on these changes. Reporting framework / Internal changes: With the last change + the no generate reports option, we were able to schedule lintian more frequently. Originally, lintian only ran once a day. With the no generate reports , we added a second run and with the last changes, we bumped it to 4 times a day. Unsurprisingly, it means that we are now reprocessing the archive a lot faster than previously. All of the above is basically the all the note-worthy changes on the Lintian reporting framework since the Partial rewrite of lintian s reporting setup (~1 years ago).
Filed under: Debian, Lintian

14 August 2016

Reproducible builds folks: Reproducible Builds: week 68 in Stretch cycle

What happened in the Reproducible Builds effort between Sunday August 7 and Saturday August 13 2016: GSoC and Outreachy updates Reproducible work in other projects Thomas Schmitt scdbackup@gmx.net implemented a new -as mkisofs option: 
--set_all_file_dates timestring
Set mtime, atime, and ctime of all files and directories to  the
given time.
Valid  timestring  formats  are:  'Nov  8  14:51:13  CET  2007',
110814512007.13, 2007110814511300. See also --modification-date=
and man xorriso, Examples of input timestrings.
This  action  stays  delayed until mkisofs emulation ends. Up to
then it  can  be  revoked  by  --set_all_file_dates  with  empty
timestring.   In  any  case  files  which get into the ISO after
mkisofs emulation ended will not  be  affected,  unless  another
mkisofs emulation applies --set_all_file_date again.
LEDE developer Jonas Gorski submitted a patch to fix build times in their kernel: 
kernel: allow reproducable builds
Similar how we fix the file times in the filesystems, fix the build time
of the kernel, and make the build number static. This should allow the
kernel build to be reproducable when combined with setting the
KERNEL\_BUILD\_USER and \_DOMAIN in case of different machines.
The reproducability only applies to non-initramfs kernels, those still
require additional changes.
Signed-off-by: Jonas Gorski <jonas.gorski@gmail.com>
Packages reviewed and fixed, and bugs filed Patches have been submitted by: Package reviews 28 reviews have been added, 4 have been updated and 7 have been removed in this week, adding to our knowledge about identified issues. Issue types have been added/updated: Weekly QA work FTBFS bugs have been reported by: diffoscope development strip-nondeterminism development tests.reproducible-builds.org Misc. Chris started to ping old bugs with patches and no maintainer reaction so far. This week's edition was written by Chris Lamb and Holger Levsen and reviewed by a bunch of Reproducible Builds folks on IRC.

8 August 2016

Michael Stapelberg: Debian Code Search: improving client-side latency

A while ago, it occurred to me that querying Debian Code Search seemed slow, which surprised me because I previously spent quite some effort on making it faster, see Debian Code Search Instant and Taming the latency tail for the most recent substantial architecture overhaul and related optimizations. Upon taking a closer look, I realized that while performing the search query on the server side was pretty fast, the perceived slowness was due to the client side being slow. By being slow , I mean that it took a long time until something was drawn on the screen (high latency) and that what was happening on the screen was janky (stuttering, not smooth). Part of that slowness was due to historical reasons: the client-side architecture was optimized for the use-case where users open Debian Code Search s index page and then submit a search query, but I was using Chrome s address bar to send a search query (type codesearch , then hit the TAB key). Further, we only added a non-JavaScript version after we launched the JavaScript version. Hence, the redirects and progressive enhancements we implemented are more of a kludge than a well thought out design. After this bit of original investigation, I opened GitHub issue #69 to track the work on making Debian Code Search faster. In that issue, I captured how Chrome s network inspector visualizes the work necessary to render the page: Chrome network inspector: before A couple of quick wins There are a couple of little fixes and improvements on which I m not going to spend too much time on, but which I list for completeness anyway just in case they come in handy for a similar project of yours: Bigger changes The URL pattern has changed. Previously, we had 2 areas of the website, one for JavaScript-compatible clients and one for the rest. When you hit the wrong one, you were redirected. In some areas, we couldn t tell which area is the correct one for you, so you would always incur a redirect: one example for this is the search bar. With the new URL pattern, we deliver both versions under the same URL: the elements only used by the JavaScript code are hidden using CSS by default, then made visible by JavaScript code. The elements only used by the non-JavaScript code are wrapped in a <noscript> tag. All CSS which is required for the initial page rendering is now inlined in the responses, allowing the browser to immediately render a response without requiring any additional round trips. All non-essential CSS has been moved into a separate CSS file which is loaded asynchronously. This is done using a pattern like <link rel="preload" href="foo.css" as="style" onload="this.rel='stylesheet'">, see also filamentgroup/loadCSS. We switched from WebSockets to the EventSource API because the former is not compatible with HTTP/2, whereas the latter is. This removes a round trip and some custom code for WebSocket reconnecting, because EventSource does that for you. The progress bar animation used to animate the background-position property. It turns out that browsers can only animate the position, scale, rotation and opacity properties smoothly, because such animations can be off-loaded to the GPU. Hence, we have re-implemented the progress bar animation using the position property. The biggest win for improving client-side latency from the Chrome address bar was introducing Service Workers (see commit 7f31aef402cb782056e290a797f224171f4af270). Our Service Worker caches static assets and a placeholder results page. The placeholder page is presented immediately when you start a search (e.g. from the address bar), making the first response immediate, i.e. rendered within 100ms. Having assets and the result page out of the way, the first round trip is used for actually doing the search, removing all unnecessary overhead. With all of these improvements in place, rendering latency goes down from half a second to well under 100 ms, and this is what the Chrome network inspector looks like: Chrome network inspector: after

16 July 2016

Rapha&#235;l Hertzog: Freexian s report about Debian Long Term Support, June 2016

A Debian LTS logoLike each month, here comes a report about the work of paid contributors to Debian LTS. Individual reports In June, 158.25 work hours have been dispatched among 11 paid contributors. Their reports are available: DebConf 16 Presentation If you want to know more about how the LTS project is organized, you can watch the presentation I gave during DebConf 16 in Cape Town. Evolution of the situation The number of sponsored hours increased a little bit at 135 hours per month thanks to 3 new sponsors (Laboratoire LEGI UMR 5519 / CNRS, Quarantainenet BV, GNI MEDIA). Our funding goal is getting closer but it s not there yet. The security tracker currently lists 40 packages with a known CVE and the dla-needed.txt file lists 38 packages awaiting an update. Thanks to our sponsors New sponsors are in bold.

26 June 2016

Clint Adams: A local script for local people

This isn't actually answering the question, but it's close. It's also horrible, so whoever adopts Enrico's script should also completely rewrite this or burn it along with the stack of pizza boxes and the grand piano. Input: 
#!/bin/zsh
set -e
PATHS=$(tempfile)
NEWKEYS=$(tempfile)
NEWKEYRING=$(tempfile)
FARTHEST_TEN=$(tempfile)
trap "rm -f $ PATHS  $ NEWKEYS  $ NEWKEYRING  $ FARTHEST_TEN " EXIT
keyring=$ 1:-ksp-dc16.gpg 
myfpr=$ 2:-2100A32C46F895AF3A08783AF6D3495BB0AE9A02 
#keyserver=$ 3:-http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/ 
# this doesn't handle hokey fetch failures
#(for fpr in $(hkt list --keyring $ keyring  --output-format JSON   jq '.[].publickey.fpr')
#do
#  hokey fetch --keyserver "$ keyserver " --validation-method MatchPrimaryKeyFingerprint "$ (Q)fpr "
#done) >$ NEWKEYS 
#
#gpg2 --no-default-keyring --keyring $ NEWKEYRING  --import $ NEWKEYS 
cp "$ keyring " "$ NEWKEYRING "
gpg2 --no-default-keyring --keyring $ NEWKEYRING  --refresh
hkt findpaths --keyring $ NEWKEYRING  '' '' '' > $ PATHS 
id=$(awk -F, "/$ myfpr )\$/  sub(/\(/,BLANKY,\$1);print \$1; " $ PATHS )
grep -e ",\[$ id ," -e ",$ id \]" $ PATHS    sort -n   tail -n 10 > $ FARTHEST_TEN 
targetids=($ (f)"$ $((sed 's/^.*\[//;s/,.*$//;' $ FARTHEST_TEN ; sed 's/\])$//;s/.*,//;' $ FARTHEST_TEN )   sort -n -u   grep -v "^$ id $") " )
targetfprs=($(for i in $ targetids ; do awk -F, "/\($ i ,[^[]/  sub(/\)/,BLANKY,\$2); print \$2 " $ PATHS ; done))
gpg2 --no-default-keyring --keyring $ NEWKEYRING  --list-keys $ targetfprs
Output: 
pub   rsa4096/0x664F1238AA8F138A 2015-07-14 [SC]
      Key fingerprint = 3575 0B8F B6EF 95FF 16B8  EBC0 664F 1238 AA8F 138A
uid                   [ unknown] Daniel Lange <dl.ml1@usrlocal.de>
sub   rsa4096/0x03BEE1C11DB1954B 2015-07-14 [E]
pub   rsa4096/0xDF23DA3396978EB3 2014-09-05 [SC]
      Key fingerprint = BBBC 58B4 5994 CF9C CC56  BCDA DF23 DA33 9697 8EB3
uid                   [  undef ] Michael Meskes <michael@fam-meskes.de>
uid                   [  undef ] Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org>
uid                   [  undef ] Michael Meskes <michael.meskes@credativ.com>
uid                   [  undef ] Michael Meskes <meskes@debian.org>
sub   rsa4096/0x85C3AFFECF0BF9B5 2014-09-05 [E]
sub   rsa4096/0x35D857C0BBCB3B25 2014-11-04 [S]
pub   rsa4096/0x1E953E27D4311E58 2009-07-12 [SC]
      Key fingerprint = C2FE 4BD2 71C1 39B8 6C53  3E46 1E95 3E27 D431 1E58
uid                   [  undef ] Chris Lamb <chris@chris-lamb.co.uk>
uid                   [  undef ] Chris Lamb <lamby@gnu.org>
uid                   [  undef ] Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org>
sub   rsa4096/0x72B3DBA98575B3F2 2009-07-12 [E]
pub   rsa4096/0xDF6D76C44D696F6B 2014-08-15 [SC] [expires: 2017-06-03]
      Key fingerprint = 1A6F 3E63 9A44 67E8 C347  6525 DF6D 76C4 4D69 6F6B
uid                   [ unknown] Sven Bartscher <sven.bartscher@weltraumschlangen.de>
uid                   [ unknown] Sven Bartscher <svenbartscher@yahoo.de>
uid                   [ unknown] Sven Bartscher <kritzefitz@debian.org>
sub   rsa4096/0x9E83B071ED764C3A 2014-08-15 [E]
sub   rsa4096/0xAEB25323217028C2 2016-06-14 [S]
pub   rsa4096/0x83E33BD7D4DD4CA1 2015-11-12 [SC] [expires: 2017-11-11]
      Key fingerprint = 0B5A 33B8 A26D 6010 9C50  9C6C 83E3 3BD7 D4DD 4CA1
uid                   [ unknown] Jerome Charaoui <jerome@riseup.net>
sub   rsa4096/0x6614611FBD6366E7 2015-11-12 [E]
sub   rsa4096/0xDB17405204ECB364 2015-11-12 [A] [expires: 2017-11-11]
pub   rsa4096/0xF823A2729883C97C 2014-08-26 [SC]
      Key fingerprint = 8ED6 C3F8 BAC9 DB7F C130  A870 F823 A272 9883 C97C
uid                   [ unknown] Lucas Kanashiro <kanashiro@debian.org>
uid                   [ unknown] Lucas Kanashiro <kanashiro.duarte@gmail.com>
sub   rsa4096/0xEE6E5D1A9C2F5EA6 2014-08-26 [E]
pub   rsa4096/0x2EC0FFB3B7301B1F 2014-08-29 [SC] [expires: 2017-04-06]
      Key fingerprint = 76A2 8E42 C981 1D91 E88F  BA5E 2EC0 FFB3 B730 1B1F
uid                   [ unknown] Niko Tyni <ntyni@debian.org>
uid                   [ unknown] Niko Tyni <ntyni@cc.helsinki.fi>
uid                   [ unknown] Niko Tyni <ntyni@iki.fi>
sub   rsa4096/0x129086C411868FD0 2014-08-29 [E] [expires: 2017-04-06]
pub   rsa4096/0xAA761F51CC10C92A 2016-06-20 [SC] [expires: 2018-06-20]
      Key fingerprint = C9DE 2EA8 93EE 4C86 BE73  973A AA76 1F51 CC10 C92A
uid                   [ unknown] Roger Shimizu <rogershimizu@gmail.com>
sub   rsa4096/0x2C2EE1D5DBE7B292 2016-06-20 [E] [expires: 2018-06-20]
sub   rsa4096/0x05C7FD79DD03C4BB 2016-06-20 [S] [expires: 2016-09-18]
Note that this completely neglects potential victims who are unconnected within the KSP set.

30 March 2016

Mike Gabriel: Pushing X.org Git repos to Github et al.

TL;DR; If you want to know why cloning several of the X.org repositories to Github or GitLab instances fails and how this can be worked around, you may want to continue reading. Why we stumbled over this issue... As a joint effort of the Arctica Project, TheQVD and X2Go, Ulrich Sibiller and I are currently preparing a build workflow for the nxagent X-server (version 3) [1] that allows building nxagent against the modular X.org 7.0 (using autoconf and automake) rather than the monolithic build workflow of X.org 6.9 (using ancient imake). Our goal is to rewind all X.org components required for building nxagent back to a state where nxagent successfully builds and runs. Then we will go through various, (probably) monthly cycles of Our first hurdle... After Ulrich now has a functioning nxagent-against-X.org-7.0-workflow locally, we want to get everything into the Arctica Project's Github namespace. Which fails... 
[mike@minobo xorg.upstream]$ git clone https://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/lib/libX11.git
Cloning into 'libX11'...
remote: Counting objects: 18520, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3441/3441), done.
remote: Total 18520 (delta 15094), reused 18325 (delta 14954)
Receiving objects: 100% (18520/18520), 5.98 MiB   549.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (15094/15094), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
[mike@minobo xorg.upstream]$ cd libX11/
[mike@minobo libX11 (master)]$ git remote rename origin upstream 
[mike@minobo libX11 (master)]$ git remote add origin git@github.com:ArcticaProject/libX11.git
[mike@minobo libX11 (master)]$ git push --mirror origin 
Counting objects: 18520, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (3301/3301), done.
remote: error: object 70d5e4d45dd7bf1e05b099cb5a4dd529344084f0: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
remote: fatal: Error in object
error: pack-objects died of signal 13
error: failed to push some refs to 'git@github.com:ArcticaProject/libX11.git'
This issue should be a known issue at X.org / Mesa upstream [2]. The underlying problem occurs with Git 2.5 and above... If you run git-fsck from Git (>= 2.5) against several of the X.org Git repositories, you will stumble over the above issue. For libX11.git, we see these errors reported when running git-fsck from current Debian unstable: 
mike@sid:~/xorg/libX11.git$ git fsck 
Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done.
error in tag 70d5e4d45dd7bf1e05b099cb5a4dd529344084f0: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag a3bfe698090a5d41f1e9acb1b57a049085d6b04e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag c1fc8c9aec1bc92d03d08d5e986dd40b194a7a3e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag d4c27f7e7d8e2ea32418f341ad85c33f3b76862d: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 79780379aee21bf4d4bcb046a3b54774893ea6b1: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag a638de80ec20dc1de625cd323ed19a6646fecf2e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag f6a6414e4e52a971a35fd118c350567e2383d034: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag b5c6810e21be2e7ccfac8f0539d46bf75dbe50a0: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 86cec9d20428cc190ec7278a0abe481b180288ac: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag ac912988091574790c7cffbbc2c60b8c59f8fcef: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2d01674092951cd3284b3b099978b2436ea468ad: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 922d0534154668918eaa09a36cc5cd53fc6b71b7: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 8ef91b9cc0a4a7b0361f6b40b3f735221c8272cb: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 1516173727005a87aa501e1ad708d72e6ae6e753: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 77c9e63a3abff1593ccbed249b2c3ae7f68e1833: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 58044c7087137ce2b521297dbb31934ccaedc94e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2e0d061c6830891dcc856a04aac900e5bb6d0779: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2f58c7cc4cbf3d30927f6301039b6bf018ed38fd: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 77fc2e1e26019c3ba92275d249fe1979570255d2: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 9b2e06fa262f23dbcbbccd42be6477e08a452268: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 7f99410bb9cc9f7cbbc2d43d8ad044771a6eec0a: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 99b59b83f126b4abb9da89f577a5b8147d543c25: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 97170c33f99761acd932f968e21d6d7664e7ba80: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag b39966d452127c992987d082f69321f950ae4c39: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 05e20c3bd8ac6b7e873607db73894486a4ac0519: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag f478497b5a3e9d6b92237e0f408c9f0f18108f52: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag c5ed936f28ce70c8932e33d67a6e06d140e35ba8: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2b6beba295a6ff997dfe15a732c95ae6577fa735: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 32edbb1e9c5b7d1c6f8639dab85e5368d303df7f: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 490fbe2afb9ffc7057c0eb150f7cdd4d4fa8686c: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag fc605ac48bd7d675d6d04162a0f3bfebe27f2037: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 6289ecc26d1d505f395c59da744a9354d7aad2a2: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 8c9c30dac72aebd1a2c31a55a47c0ac11bc328db: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 3b7aa57994924be0dad693e837559d9ee900299c: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag b02ad9a8ec96e3c1027ca71289aeef5b8748e17e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 4402ab1a86226a9cd0ce84fb8147b1c4958c684d: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag bb02b4fbde316644c771d28d5edeeb9b213a6d6a: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 95b6462c70213b562c9d2b8726eda706edc9c456: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag a99fea43ad53907623f269942c55237c238645e0: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 0c417ce98a6cf927ce7a1359b198b2bb746c707e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag ce3ff6b102f360fc9dcd3a85361f44da054de0b1: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2fb7b16b38a365c5009bd170d4463634c1f3de26: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 95570f484bfde5fc2ed8548cb17b87d8114a2866: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag d6e5895c104cfe0d135494a605013dd2910a93a1: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 49be7144523c4a56afcb389a9aa021d167710d2c: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 020353d1b982ac938d229039ca13bfea5793fcd9: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 991792d4f8477ab65ad4d8a0245c9a3bbb1f0294: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag e8037555efe299a7143370b485f754f6b08ffac7: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 4fdc8e36a5022f3e32d5567305d8e9cde4011f1a: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 9c93a19a76163328e30a7306bb0babe3175fb9a2: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 9f90bf4424250f80340b3e2803d343c74d2adb0b: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 2e7a8c7974777e3e869de9013025dc3f61633e1e: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 59b7c06da2a64d72668394e9239e3dfe8a5cff59: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 0263c4f684faa9a5126a0db524d5d35be7277e52: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 1514e654c1a9b346cbfca5a81f6d331f106242aa: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
error in tag 6aa83ec3d1d82ee332cedcf4e99d3cbd56e73edd: missingSpaceBeforeDate: invalid author/committer line - missing space before date
Checking objects: 100% (18523/18523), done.
What actually is going wrong here... When looking at one of those tags (luckily, only tags are affected), we see that something's not ok with the date string of the tag (I am not a Git plumber, so sorry for being superficial here): 
mike@sid:~/xorg/libX11.git$ git show 2fb7b16b38a365c5009bd170d4463634c1f3de26
tag XORG-RELEASE-1-TM-MERGE
Tagger: Alan Coopersmith 
Date:   Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
commit 84adc60cae8e944777563501dd633622a28bdb3b
Author: Alan Coopersmith 
Date:   Sat Mar 27 07:08:16 2004 +0000
    Fix typo (IsModiferKey should be IsModifierKey)
[... not quoting the diff for the above commit ...]
How to work around that issue... We then got the idea that we could redo those tags with the date string derived from the commit that this tag points at. This can be scripted (credits go to an unnamed person in Ulrich's surrounding!!!): 
mike@sid:~/xorg/libX11$ cat repair.sh
#!/bin/bash
set -x
git fsck 2>&1   tee git-fsck.log   grep "error in tag"   sed -r -e 's/error in tag ([0-9a-f]+):.*/\1/p'   while read broken; do
         echo $broken
         commit=$(git rev-parse $ broken ^ commit )
         tag=$(git cat-file tag $broken   sed -n 's/^tag //p')
         tag_msg=$(git cat-file tag $broken   sed -n '/^$/,$p'   tail -n +2)
         export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$(git log -1 --format='%cn' $commit)"
         export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$(git log -1 --format='%ce' $commit)"
         export GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="$(git log -1 --format='%cD' $commit)"
         git tag -a -f -m "$tag_msg" $tag $commit
done
# drop all old content...
git reflog expire --expire=all --all
git gc --prune=all
# no more errors should be reported...
git fsck
Copy this repair.sh into the Git repo itself and let the script walk over your tags. After this script has been applied you can push the X.org Git repo with broken tags redone to Git hosters like Github or GitLab. light+love,
Mike [1] https://github.com/ArcticaProject/nx-libs
[2] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2016-February/106268.html

5 February 2016

Daniel Pocock: Giving up democracy to get it back

Do services like Facebook and Twitter really help worthwhile participation in democracy, or are they the most sinister and efficient mechanism ever invented to control people while giving the illusion that they empower us? Over the last few years, groups on the left and right of the political spectrum have spoken more and more loudly about the problems in the European Union. Some advocate breaking up the EU, while behind the scenes milking it for every handout they can get. Others seek to reform it from within. Yanis Varoufakis on motorbike Most recently, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has announced plans to found a movement (not a political party) that claims to "democratise" the EU by 2025. Ironically, one of his first steps has been to create a web site directing supporters to Facebook and Twitter. A groundbreaking effort to put citizens back in charge? Or further entangling activism in the false hope of platforms that are run for profit by their Silicon Valley overlords? A Greek tragedy indeed, in the classical sense. Varoufakis rails against authoritarian establishment figures who don't put the citizens' interests first. Ironically, big data and the cloud are a far bigger threat than Brussels. The privacy and independence of each citizen is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Companies like Facebook are obliged - by law and by contract - to service the needs of their shareholders and advertisers paying to study and influence the poor user. If "Facebook privacy" settings were actually credible, who would want to buy their shares any more? Facebook is more akin to an activism placebo: people sitting in their armchair clicking to "Like" whales or trees are having hardly any impact at all. Maintaining democracy requires a sufficient number of people to be actively involved, whether it is raising funds for worthwhile causes, scrutinizing the work of our public institutions or even writing blogs like this. Keeping them busy on Facebook and Twitter renders them impotent in the real world (but please feel free to alert your friends with a tweet) Big data is one of the areas that requires the greatest scrutiny. Many of the professionals working in the field are actually selling out their own friends and neighbours, their own families and even themselves. The general public and the policy makers who claim to represent us are oblivious or reckless about the consequences of this all-you-can-eat feeding frenzy on humanity. Pretending to be democratic is all part of the illusion. Facebook's recent announcement to deviate from their real-name policy is about as effective as using sunscreen to treat HIV. By subjecting themselves to the laws of Facebook, activists have simply given Facebook more status and power. Data means power. Those who are accumulating it from us, collecting billions of tiny details about our behavior, every hour of every day, are fortifying a position of great strength with which they can personalize messages to condition anybody, anywhere, to think the way they want us to. Does that sound like the route to democracy? I would encourage Mr Varoufakis to get up to speed with Free Software and come down to Zurich next week to hear Richard Stallman explain it the day before launching his DiEM25 project in Berlin. Will the DiEM25 movement invite participation from experts on big data and digital freedom and make these issues a core element of their promised manifesto? Is there any credible way they can achieve their goal of democracy by 2025 without addressing such issues head-on? Or put that the other way around: what will be left of democracy in 2025 if big data continues to run rampant? Will it be as distant as the gods of Greek mythology? Still not convinced? Read about Amazon secretly removing George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles while people were reading them, Apple filtering the availability of apps with a pro-Life bias and Facebook using algorithms to identify homosexual users.

17 October 2015

Simon Richter: Key Transition

So, since several years I've had a second gpg key, 4096R/6AABE354. Several of you have already signed it, and I've been using it in Debian for some time already, but I've not announced it more widely yet, and I occasionally still get mail encrypted to the old key (which remains valid and usable, but it's 1024R). Of course, I've also made a formal transition statement: 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
OpenPGP Key Transition Statement for Simon Richter
I have created a new OpenPGP key and will be transitioning away from
my old key.  The old key has not been compromised and will continue to
be valid for some time, but I prefer all future correspondence to be
encrypted to the new key, and will be making signatures with the new
key going forward.
I would like this new key to be re-integrated into the web of trust.
This message is signed by both keys to certify the transition.  My new
and old keys are signed by each other.  If you have signed my old key,
I would appreciate signatures on my new key as well, provided that
your signing policy permits that without re-authenticating me.
The old key, which I am transitioning away from, is:
pub   1024D/5706A4B4 2002-02-26
      Key fingerprint = 040E B5F7 84F1 4FBC CEAD  ADC6 18A0 CC8D 5706 A4B4
The new key, to which I am transitioning, is:
pub   4096R/6AABE354 2009-11-19
      Key fingerprint = 9C43 2534 95E4 DCA8 3794  5F5B EBF6 7A84 6AAB E354
The entire key may be downloaded from: http://www.simonrichter.eu/simon.asc
To fetch the full new key from a public key server using GnuPG, run:
  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key 6AABE354
If you already know my old key, you can now verify that the new key is
signed by the old one:
  gpg --check-sigs 6AABE354
If you are satisfied that you've got the right key, and the User IDs
match what you expect, I would appreciate it if you would sign my key:
  gpg --sign-key 6AABE354
You can upload your signatures to a public keyserver directly:
  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --send-key 6AABE354
Or email sr@simonrichter.eu (possibly encrypted) the output from:
  gpg --armor --export 6AABE354
If you'd like any further verification or have any questions about the
transition please contact me directly.
To verify the integrity of this statement:
  wget -q -O- http://www.simonrichter.eu/key-transition-2015-03-09.txt   gpg --verify
   Simon
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1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=o61r
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

27 August 2015

Ritesh Raj Sarraf: Laptop Mode Tools - 1.68

I am please to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools, version 1.68. This release is mainly focused on integration with the newer init system, systemd. Without the help from the awesome Debian systemd maintainers, this would not have been possible. Thank you folks. While the focus now is on systemd, LMT will still support the older SysV Init. With this new release, there are some new files: laptop-mode.service, laptop-mode.timer and lmt-poll.service. All the files should be documented well enough for users. lmt-poll.service is the equivalent of the module battery-level-polling, should you need it. Filtered git log: 
1.68 - Thu Aug 27 22:36:43 IST 2015
    * Fix all instances for BATTERY_LEVEL_POLLING
    * Group kill the polling daemon so that its child process get the same signal
    * Release the descriptor explicitly
    * Add identifier about who's our parent
    * Narrow down our power_supply subsystem event check condition
    * Fine tune the .service file
    * On my ultrabook, AC as reported as ACAD
    * Enhance lmt-udev to better work with systemd
    * Add a timer based polling for LMT. It is the equivalent of battery-polling-daemon,
      using systemd
    * Disable battery level polling by default, because most systems will have systemd running
    * Add documentation reference in systemd files
The md5 checksum for the tarball is 15edf643990e08deaebebf66b128b270

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17 May 2015

Lunar: Reproducible builds: week 2 in Stretch cycle

What happened about the reproducible builds effort for this week: Media coverage Debian's effort on reproducible builds has been covered in the June 2015 issue of Linux Magazin in Germany. Cover of Linux Magazin June 2015 Article about reproducible builds in Linux Magazin June 2015 Toolchain fixes josch rebased the experimental version of debhelper on 9.20150507. Packages fixed The following 515 packages became reproducible due to changes of their build dependencies: airport-utils, airspy-host, all-in-one-sidebar, ampache, aptfs, arpack, asciio, aspell-kk, asused, balance, batmand, binutils-avr, bioperl, bpm-tools, c2050, cakephp-instaweb, carton, cbp2make, checkbot, checksecurity, chemeq, chronicle, cube2-data, cucumber, darkstat, debci, desktop-file-utils, dh-linktree, django-pagination, dosbox, eekboek, emboss-explorer, encfs, exabgp, fbasics, fife, fonts-lexi-saebom, gdnsd, glances, gnome-clocks, gunicorn, haproxy, haskell-aws, haskell-base-unicode-symbols, haskell-base64-bytestring, haskell-basic-prelude, haskell-binary-shared, haskell-binary, haskell-bitarray, haskell-bool-extras, haskell-boolean, haskell-boomerang, haskell-bytestring-lexing, haskell-bytestring-mmap, haskell-config-value, haskell-mueval, haskell-tasty-kat, itk3, jnr-constants, jshon, kalternatives, kdepim-runtime, kdevplatform, kwalletcli, lemonldap-ng, libalgorithm-combinatorics-perl, libalgorithm-diff-xs-perl, libany-uri-escape-perl, libanyevent-http-scopedclient-perl, libanyevent-perl, libanyevent-processor-perl, libapache-session-wrapper-perl, libapache-sessionx-perl, libapp-options-perl, libarch-perl, libarchive-peek-perl, libaudio-flac-header-perl, libaudio-wav-perl, libaudio-wma-perl, libauth-yubikey-decrypter-perl, libauthen-krb5-simple-perl, libauthen-simple-perl, libautobox-dump-perl, libb-keywords-perl, libbarcode-code128-perl, libbio-das-lite-perl, libbio-mage-perl, libbrowser-open-perl, libbusiness-creditcard-perl, libbusiness-edifact-interchange-perl, libbusiness-isbn-data-perl, libbusiness-tax-vat-validation-perl, libcache-historical-perl, libcache-memcached-perl, libcairo-gobject-perl, libcarp-always-perl, libcarp-fix-1-25-perl, libcatalyst-action-serialize-data-serializer-perl, libcatalyst-controller-formbuilder-perl, libcatalyst-dispatchtype-regex-perl, libcatalyst-plugin-authentication-perl, libcatalyst-plugin-authorization-acl-perl, libcatalyst-plugin-session-store-cache-perl, libcatalyst-plugin-session-store-fastmmap-perl, libcatalyst-plugin-static-simple-perl, libcatalyst-view-gd-perl, libcgi-application-dispatch-perl, libcgi-application-plugin-authentication-perl, libcgi-application-plugin-logdispatch-perl, libcgi-application-plugin-session-perl, libcgi-application-server-perl, libcgi-compile-perl, libcgi-xmlform-perl, libclass-accessor-classy-perl, libclass-accessor-lvalue-perl, libclass-accessor-perl, libclass-c3-adopt-next-perl, libclass-dbi-plugin-type-perl, libclass-field-perl, libclass-handle-perl, libclass-load-perl, libclass-ooorno-perl, libclass-prototyped-perl, libclass-returnvalue-perl, libclass-singleton-perl, libclass-std-fast-perl, libclone-perl, libconfig-auto-perl, libconfig-jfdi-perl, libconfig-simple-perl, libconvert-basen-perl, libconvert-ber-perl, libcpan-checksums-perl, libcpanplus-dist-build-perl, libcriticism-perl, libcrypt-cracklib-perl, libcrypt-dh-gmp-perl, libcrypt-mysql-perl, libcrypt-passwdmd5-perl, libcrypt-simple-perl, libcss-packer-perl, libcss-tiny-perl, libcurses-widgets-perl, libdaemon-control-perl, libdancer-plugin-database-perl, libdancer-session-cookie-perl, libdancer2-plugin-database-perl, libdata-format-html-perl, libdata-uuid-libuuid-perl, libdata-validate-domain-perl, libdate-jd-perl, libdate-simple-perl, libdatetime-astro-sunrise-perl, libdatetime-event-cron-perl, libdatetime-format-dbi-perl, libdatetime-format-epoch-perl, libdatetime-format-mail-perl, libdatetime-tiny-perl, libdatrie, libdb-file-lock-perl, libdbd-firebird-perl, libdbix-abstract-perl, libdbix-class-datetime-epoch-perl, libdbix-class-dynamicdefault-perl, libdbix-class-introspectablem2m-perl, libdbix-class-timestamp-perl, libdbix-connector-perl, libdbix-oo-perl, libdbix-searchbuilder-perl, libdbix-xml-rdb-perl, libdevel-stacktrace-ashtml-perl, libdigest-hmac-perl, libdist-zilla-plugin-emailnotify-perl, libemail-date-format-perl, libemail-mime-perl, libemail-received-perl, libemail-sender-perl, libemail-simple-perl, libencode-detect-perl, libexporter-tidy-perl, libextutils-cchecker-perl, libextutils-installpaths-perl, libextutils-libbuilder-perl, libextutils-makemaker-cpanfile-perl, libextutils-typemap-perl, libfile-counterfile-perl, libfile-pushd-perl, libfile-read-perl, libfile-touch-perl, libfile-type-perl, libfinance-bank-ie-permanenttsb-perl, libfont-freetype-perl, libfrontier-rpc-perl, libgd-securityimage-perl, libgeo-coordinates-utm-perl, libgit-pureperl-perl, libgnome2-canvas-perl, libgnome2-wnck-perl, libgraph-readwrite-perl, libgraphics-colornames-www-perl, libgssapi-perl, libgtk2-appindicator-perl, libgtk2-gladexml-simple-perl, libgtk2-notify-perl, libhash-asobject-perl, libhash-moreutils-perl, libhtml-calendarmonthsimple-perl, libhtml-display-perl, libhtml-fillinform-perl, libhtml-form-perl, libhtml-formhandler-model-dbic-perl, libhtml-html5-entities-perl, libhtml-linkextractor-perl, libhtml-tableextract-perl, libhtml-widget-perl, libhtml-widgets-selectlayers-perl, libhtml-wikiconverter-mediawiki-perl, libhttp-async-perl, libhttp-body-perl, libhttp-date-perl, libimage-imlib2-perl, libimdb-film-perl, libimport-into-perl, libindirect-perl, libio-bufferedselect-perl, libio-compress-lzma-perl, libio-compress-perl, libio-handle-util-perl, libio-interface-perl, libio-multiplex-perl, libio-socket-inet6-perl, libipc-system-simple-perl, libiptables-chainmgr-perl, libjoda-time-java, libjsr305-java, libkiokudb-perl, liblemonldap-ng-cli-perl, liblexical-var-perl, liblingua-en-fathom-perl, liblinux-dvb-perl, liblocales-perl, liblog-dispatch-configurator-any-perl, liblog-log4perl-perl, liblog-report-lexicon-perl, liblwp-mediatypes-perl, liblwp-protocol-https-perl, liblwpx-paranoidagent-perl, libmail-sendeasy-perl, libmarc-xml-perl, libmason-plugin-routersimple-perl, libmasonx-processdir-perl, libmath-base85-perl, libmath-basecalc-perl, libmath-basecnv-perl, libmath-bigint-perl, libmath-convexhull-perl, libmath-gmp-perl, libmath-gradient-perl, libmath-random-isaac-perl, libmath-random-oo-perl, libmath-random-tt800-perl, libmath-tamuanova-perl, libmemoize-expirelru-perl, libmemoize-memcached-perl, libmime-base32-perl, libmime-lite-tt-perl, libmixin-extrafields-param-perl, libmock-quick-perl, libmodule-cpanfile-perl, libmodule-load-conditional-perl, libmodule-starter-pbp-perl, libmodule-util-perl, libmodule-versions-report-perl, libmongodbx-class-perl, libmoo-perl, libmoosex-app-cmd-perl, libmoosex-attributehelpers-perl, libmoosex-blessed-reconstruct-perl, libmoosex-insideout-perl, libmoosex-relatedclassroles-perl, libmoosex-role-timer-perl, libmoosex-role-withoverloading-perl, libmoosex-storage-perl, libmoosex-types-common-perl, libmoosex-types-uri-perl, libmoox-singleton-perl, libmoox-types-mooselike-numeric-perl, libmousex-foreign-perl, libmp3-tag-perl, libmysql-diff-perl, libnamespace-clean-perl, libnet-bonjour-perl, libnet-cli-interact-perl, libnet-daap-dmap-perl, libnet-dbus-glib-perl, libnet-dns-perl, libnet-frame-perl, libnet-google-authsub-perl, libnet-https-any-perl, libnet-https-nb-perl, libnet-idn-encode-perl, libnet-idn-nameprep-perl, libnet-imap-client-perl, libnet-irc-perl, libnet-mac-vendor-perl, libnet-openid-server-perl, libnet-smtp-ssl-perl, libnet-smtp-tls-perl, libnet-smtpauth-perl, libnet-snpp-perl, libnet-sslglue-perl, libnet-telnet-perl, libnhgri-blastall-perl, libnumber-range-perl, libobject-signature-perl, libogg-vorbis-header-pureperl-perl, libopenoffice-oodoc-perl, libparse-cpan-packages-perl, libparse-debian-packages-perl, libparse-fixedlength-perl, libparse-syslog-perl, libparse-win32registry-perl, libpdf-create-perl, libpdf-report-perl, libperl-destruct-level-perl, libperl-metrics-simple-perl, libperl-minimumversion-perl, libperl6-slurp-perl, libpgobject-simple-perl, libplack-middleware-fixmissingbodyinredirect-perl, libplack-test-externalserver-perl, libplucene-perl, libpod-tests-perl, libpoe-component-client-ping-perl, libpoe-component-jabber-perl, libpoe-component-resolver-perl, libpoe-component-server-soap-perl, libpoe-component-syndicator-perl, libposix-strftime-compiler-perl, libposix-strptime-perl, libpostscript-simple-perl, libproc-processtable-perl, libprotocol-osc-perl, librcs-perl, libreadonly-xs-perl, libreturn-multilevel-perl, librivescript-perl, librouter-simple-perl, librrd-simple-perl, libsafe-isa-perl, libscope-guard-perl, libsemver-perl, libset-tiny-perl, libsharyanto-file-util-perl, libshell-command-perl, libsnmp-info-perl, libsoap-lite-perl, libstat-lsmode-perl, libstatistics-online-perl, libstring-compare-constanttime-perl, libstring-format-perl, libstring-toidentifier-en-perl, libstring-tt-perl, libsub-recursive-perl, libsvg-tt-graph-perl, libsvn-notify-perl, libswish-api-common-perl, libtap-formatter-junit-perl, libtap-harness-archive-perl, libtemplate-plugin-number-format-perl, libtemplate-plugin-yaml-perl, libtemplate-tiny-perl, libtenjin-perl, libterm-visual-perl, libtest-block-perl, libtest-carp-perl, libtest-classapi-perl, libtest-cmd-perl, libtest-consistentversion-perl, libtest-data-perl, libtest-databaserow-perl, libtest-differences-perl, libtest-file-sharedir-perl, libtest-hasversion-perl, libtest-kwalitee-perl, libtest-lectrotest-perl, libtest-module-used-perl, libtest-object-perl, libtest-perl-critic-perl, libtest-pod-coverage-perl, libtest-script-perl, libtest-script-run-perl, libtest-spelling-perl, libtest-strict-perl, libtest-synopsis-perl, libtest-trap-perl, libtest-unit-perl, libtest-utf8-perl, libtest-without-module-perl, libtest-www-selenium-perl, libtest-xml-simple-perl, libtest-yaml-perl, libtex-encode-perl, libtext-bibtex-perl, libtext-csv-encoded-perl, libtext-csv-perl, libtext-dhcpleases-perl, libtext-diff-perl, libtext-quoted-perl, libtext-trac-perl, libtext-vfile-asdata-perl, libthai, libthread-conveyor-perl, libthread-sigmask-perl, libtie-cphash-perl, libtie-ical-perl, libtime-stopwatch-perl, libtk-dirselect-perl, libtk-pod-perl, libtorrent, libturpial, libunicode-japanese-perl, libunicode-maputf8-perl, libunicode-stringprep-perl, libuniversal-isa-perl, libuniversal-moniker-perl, liburi-encode-perl, libvi-quickfix-perl, libvideo-capture-v4l-perl, libvideo-fourcc-info-perl, libwiki-toolkit-plugin-rss-reader-perl, libwww-mechanize-formfiller-perl, libwww-mechanize-gzip-perl, libwww-mechanize-perl, libwww-opensearch-perl, libx11-freedesktop-desktopentry-perl, libxc, libxml-dtdparser-perl, libxml-easy-perl, libxml-handler-trees-perl, libxml-libxml-iterator-perl, libxml-libxslt-perl, libxml-rss-perl, libxml-validator-schema-perl, libxml-xpathengine-perl, libxml-xql-perl, llvm-py, madbomber, makefs, mdpress, media-player-info, meta-kde-telepathy, metamonger, mmm-mode, mupen64plus-audio-sdl, mupen64plus-rsp-hle, mupen64plus-ui-console, mupen64plus-video-z64, mussort, newpid, node-formidable, node-github-url-from-git, node-transformers, nsnake, odin, otcl, parsley, pax, pcsc-perl, pd-purepd, pen, prank, proj, proot, puppet-module-puppetlabs-postgresql, python-async, python-pysnmp4, qrencode, r-bioc-graph, r-bioc-hypergraph, r-bioc-iranges, r-bioc-xvector, r-cran-pscl, rbenv, rlinetd, rs, ruby-ascii85, ruby-cutest, ruby-ejs, ruby-factory-girl, ruby-hdfeos5, ruby-kpeg, ruby-libxml, ruby-password, ruby-zip-zip, sdl-sound1.2, stterm, systemd, taktuk, tcc, tryton-modules-account-invoice, ttf-summersby, tupi, tuxpuck, unknown-horizons, unsafe-mock, vcheck, versiontools, vim-addon-manager, vlfeat, vsearch, xacobeo, xen-tools, yubikey-personalization-gui, yubikey-personalization. The following packages became reproducible after getting fixed: Some uploads fixed some reproducibility issues but not all of them: Patches submitted which did not make their way to the archive yet: reproducible.debian.net Alioth now hosts a script that can be used to redo builds and test for a package. This was preliminary done manually through requests over the IRC channel. This should reduce the number of interruptions for jenkins' maintainers The graph of the oldest build per day has been fixed. Maintainance scripts will not error out when they are no files to remove. Holger Levsen started work on being able to test variations of CPU features and build date (as in build in another month of 1984) by using virtual machines. debbindiff development Version 18 has been released. It will uses proper comparators for pk3 and info files. Tar member names are now assumed to be UTF-8 encoded. The limit for the maximum number of different lines has been removed. Let's see on reproducible.debian.net how it goes for pathological cases. It's now possible to specify both --html and --text output. When neither of them is specified, the default will be to print a text report on the standard output (thanks to Paul Wise for the suggestion). Documentation update Nicolas Boulenguez investigated Ada libraries. Package reviews 451 obsolete reviews have been removed and 156 added this week. New identified issues: running kernel version getting captured, random filenames in GHC debug symbols, and timestamps in headers generated by qdbusxml2cpp. Misc. Holger Levsen went to re:publica and talked about reproducible builds to developers and users there. Holger also had a chance to meet FreeBSD developers and discuss the status of FreeBSD. Investigations have started on how it could be made part of our current test system. Laurent Guerby gave Lunar access to systems in the GCC Compile Farm. Hopefully access to these powerful machines will help to fix packages for GCC, Iceweasel, and similar packages requiring long build times.

2 May 2015

Dimitri Fontaine: Quicklisp and debian

Common Lisp users are very happy to use Quicklisp when it comes to downloading and maintaining dependencies between their own code and the librairies it is using. Sometimes I am pointed that when compared to other programming languages Common Lisp is lacking a lot in the batteries included area. After having had to package about 50 common lisp librairies for debian I can tell you that I politely disagree with that. And this post is about the tool and process I use to maintain all those librairies. Quicklisp is good at ensuring a proper distribution of all those libs it supports and actually tests that they all compile and load together, so I've been using it as my upstream for debian packaging purposes. Using Quicklisp here makes my life much simpler as I can grovel through its metadata and automate most of the maintenance of my cl related packages. It's all automated in the ql-to-deb software which, unsurprisingly, has been written in Common Lisp itself. It's a kind of a Quicklisp client that will fetch Quicklisp current list of releases with version numbers and compare to the list of managed packages for debian in order to then build new version automatically. The current workflow I'm using begins with using ql-to-deb is to check for the work to be done today: 
$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb check
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp.txt"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp/2015-04-07/releases.txt"
update: cl+ssl cl-csv cl-db3 drakma esrap graph hunchentoot local-time lparallel nibbles qmynd trivial-backtrace
upload: hunchentoot
After careful manual review of the automatic decision, let's just update all what check decided would have to be: 
$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb update
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp.txt"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/dist/quicklisp/2015-04-07/releases.txt"
Updating package cl-plus-ssl from 20140826 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-plus-ssl.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl+ssl/2015-03-02/cl+ssl-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl+ssl-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 61d9d164d37ab5c91048827dfccd6835
Building package cl-plus-ssl
Updating package cl-csv from 20140826 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-csv.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl-csv/2015-03-02/cl-csv-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl-csv-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 32f6484a899fdc5b690f01c244cd9f55
Building package cl-csv
Updating package cl-db3 from 20131111 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-db3.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/cl-db3/2015-03-02/cl-db3-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/cl-db3-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 578896a3f60f474742f240b703f8c5f5
Building package cl-db3
Updating package cl-drakma from 1.3.11 to 1.3.13.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-drakma.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/drakma/2015-04-07/drakma-1.3.13.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/drakma-1.3.13.tgz"
      md5: 3b548bce10728c7a058f19444c8477c3
Building package cl-drakma
Updating package cl-esrap from 20150113 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-esrap.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/esrap/2015-03-02/esrap-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/esrap-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: 8b198d26c27afcd1e9ce320820b0e569
Building package cl-esrap
Updating package cl-graph from 20141106 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-graph.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/graph/2015-04-07/graph-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/graph-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 3894ef9262c0912378aa3b6e8861de79
Building package cl-graph
Updating package hunchentoot from 1.2.29 to 1.2.31.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//hunchentoot.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/hunchentoot/2015-04-07/hunchentoot-1.2.31.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/hunchentoot-1.2.31.tgz"
      md5: 973eccfef87e81f1922424cb19884d63
Building package hunchentoot
Updating package cl-local-time from 20150113 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-local-time.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/local-time/2015-04-07/local-time-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/local-time-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 7be4a31d692f5862014426a53eb1e48e
Building package cl-local-time
Updating package cl-lparallel from 20141106 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-lparallel.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/lparallel/2015-03-02/lparallel-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/lparallel-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: dbda879d0e3abb02a09b326e14fa665d
Building package cl-lparallel
Updating package cl-nibbles from 20141106 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-nibbles.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/nibbles/2015-04-07/nibbles-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/nibbles-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 2ffb26241a1b3f49d48d28e7a61b1ab1
Building package cl-nibbles
Updating package cl-qmynd from 20141217 to 20150302.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-qmynd.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/qmynd/2015-03-02/qmynd-20150302-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/qmynd-20150302-git.tgz"
      md5: b1cc35f90b0daeb9ba507fd4e1518882
Building package cl-qmynd
Updating package cl-trivial-backtrace from 20120909 to 20150407.
     see logs in "//tmp/ql-to-deb/logs//cl-trivial-backtrace.log"
Fetching "http://beta.quicklisp.org/archive/trivial-backtrace/2015-04-07/trivial-backtrace-20150407-git.tgz"
Checksum test passed.
     File: "/tmp/ql-to-deb/archives/trivial-backtrace-20150407-git.tgz"
      md5: 762b0acf757dc8a2a6812d2f0f2614d9
Building package cl-trivial-backtrace
Quite simple. To be totally honnest, I first had a problem with the parser generator library esrap wherein the README documentation changed to be a README.org file, and I had to tell my debian packaging about that. See the 0ef669579cf7c07280eae7fe6f61f1bd664d337e commit to ql-to-deb for details. What about trying to install those packages locally? That's usually a very good test. Sometimes some dependencies are missing at the dpkg command line, so another apt-get install -f is needed: 
$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb install
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv-clsql_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv-data-table_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1_all.deb /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_all.deb
(Reading database ... 79689 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-plus-ssl (20150302-1) over (20140826-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv-clsql.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv-clsql_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv-clsql (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-csv-data-table.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-csv-data-table_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-csv-data-table (20150302-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package cl-db3.
Preparing to unpack .../cl-db3_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-db3 (20150302-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-drakma (1.3.13-1) over (1.3.11-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-esrap_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-esrap (20150302-1) over (20150113-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-graph_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-graph (20150407-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-hunchentoot (1.2.31-1) over (1.2.29-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-local-time_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-local-time (20150407-1) over (20150113-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-lparallel_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-lparallel (20150302-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-nibbles_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-nibbles (20150407-1) over (20141106-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-qmynd_20150302-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-qmynd (20150302-1) over (20141217-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-trivial-backtrace (20150407-1) over (20120909-2) ...
Setting up cl-plus-ssl (20150302-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv:
 cl-csv depends on cl-interpol; however:
  Package cl-interpol is not installed.
dpkg: error processing package cl-csv (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv-clsql:
 cl-csv-clsql depends on cl-csv; however:
  Package cl-csv is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package cl-csv-clsql (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of cl-csv-data-table:
 cl-csv-data-table depends on cl-csv; however:
  Package cl-csv is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package cl-csv-data-table (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up cl-db3 (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-drakma (1.3.13-1) ...
Setting up cl-esrap (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-graph (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-local-time (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-lparallel (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-nibbles (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-qmynd (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-trivial-backtrace (20150407-1) ...
Setting up cl-hunchentoot (1.2.31-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 cl-csv
 cl-csv-clsql
 cl-csv-data-table
Let's make sure that our sid users will be happy with the update here: 
$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  g++-4.7 git git-man html2text libaugeas-ruby1.8 libbind9-80
  libclass-isa-perl libcurl3-gnutls libdns88 libdrm-nouveau1a
  libegl1-mesa-drivers libffi5 libgraphite3 libgssglue1 libisc84 libisccc80
  libisccfg82 liblcms1 liblwres80 libmpc2 libopenjpeg2 libopenvg1-mesa
  libpoppler19 librtmp0 libswitch-perl libtiff4 libwayland-egl1-mesa luatex
  openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra python-chardet python-debian
  python-magic python-pkg-resources python-six ttf-dejavu-core ttf-marvosym
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  cl-interpol
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  cl-interpol
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 51 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 20.7 kB of archives.
After this operation, 135 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Get:1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ sid/main cl-interpol all 0.2.1-2 [20.7 kB]
Fetched 20.7 kB in 0s (84.5 kB/s)
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
Selecting previously unselected package cl-interpol.
(Reading database ... 79725 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../cl-interpol_0.2.1-2_all.deb ...
Unpacking cl-interpol (0.2.1-2) ...
Setting up cl-interpol (0.2.1-2) ...
Setting up cl-csv (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-csv-clsql (20150302-1) ...
Setting up cl-csv-data-table (20150302-1) ...
All looks fine, time to sign those packages. There's a trick here, where you want to be sure you're using a GnuPG setup that allows you to enter your passphrase only once, see ql-to-deb vm setup for details, and the usual documentations about all that if you're interested into the details. 
$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb sign
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-csv_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-db3_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-drakma_1.3.13-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-esrap_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-graph_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/hunchentoot_1.2.31-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/hunchentoot_1.2.31-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-local-time_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-lparallel_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-nibbles_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-qmynd_20150302-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1.dsc 60B1CB4E
 signfile /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-trivial-backtrace_20150407-1_amd64.changes 60B1CB4E
Successfully signed dsc and changes files
Ok, with all tested and signed, it's time we upload our packages on debian servers for our dear debian users to be able to use newer and better versions of their beloved Common Lisp librairies: 
$ /vagrant/build/bin/ql-to-deb upload
Trying to upload package to ftp-master (ftp.upload.debian.org)
Checking signature on .changes
gpg: Signature made Sat 02 May 2015 05:06:48 PM MSK using RSA key ID 60B1CB4E
gpg: Good signature from "Dimitri Fontaine <dim@tapoueh.org>"
Good signature on /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes.
Checking signature on .dsc
gpg: Signature made Sat 02 May 2015 05:06:46 PM MSK using RSA key ID 60B1CB4E
gpg: Good signature from "Dimitri Fontaine <dim@tapoueh.org>"
Good signature on /tmp/ql-to-deb/cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc.
Uploading to ftp-master (via ftp to ftp.upload.debian.org):
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.dsc: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302.orig.tar.gz: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1.debian.tar.xz: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_all.deb: done.
  Uploading cl-plus-ssl_20150302-1_amd64.changes: done.
Successfully uploaded packages.
Of course the same text or abouts is then repeated for all the other packages. Enjoy using Common Lisp in debian! Oh and remember, the only reason I've written ql-to-deb and signed myself up to maintain those upteens Common Lisp librairies as debian package is to be able to properly package pgloader in debian, as you can see at https://packages.debian.org/sid/pgloader and in particular in the Other Packages Related to pgloader section of the debian source package for pgloader at https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/pgloader. That level of effort is done to ensure that we respect the Debian Social Contract wherein debian ensures its users that it's possible to rebuild anything from sources as found in the debian repositories.

13 January 2015

Simon Josefsson: Replicant 4.2 0003 on I9300

The Replicant project released version 4.2 0003 recently. I have been using Replicant on a Samsung SIII (I9300) for around 14 months now. Since I have blogged about issues with NFC and Wifi earlier, I wanted to give a status update after upgrading to 0003. I m happy to report that my NFC issue has been resolved in 0003 (the way I suggested; reverting the patch). My issues with Wifi has been improved in 0003, with my merge request being accepted. What follows below is a standalone explanation of what works and what doesn t, as a superset of similar things discussed in my earlier blog posts. What works out of the box: Audio, Telephony, SMS, Data (GSM/3G), Back Camera, NFC. 2D Graphics is somewhat slow compared to stock ROM, but I m using it daily and can live with that so it isn t too onerus. Stability is fine, similar to other Android device I m used to. Video playback does not work (due to non-free media decoders?), which is not a serious problem for me but still likely the biggest outstanding issue except for freedom concerns. 3D graphics apparently doesn t work, and I believe it is what prevents Firefox from working properly (it crashes). I m having one annoying but strange problem with telephony: when calling one person I get scrambled audio around 75% of the time. I can still hear what the other person is saying, but can barely make anything out of it. This only happens over 3G, so my workaround when calling that person is to switch to 2G before and switch back after. I talk with plenty other people, and have never had this problem with anyone else, and it has never happened when she talks with anyone else but me. If anyone has suggestion on how to debug this, I m all ears. Important apps to get through daily life for me includes K9Mail (email), DAVDroid (for ownCloud CalDav/CardDAV), CalDav Sync Adapter (for Google Calendars), Conversations (XMPP/Jabber chat), FDroid (for apps), ownCloud (auto-uploading my photos), SMS Backup+, Xabber (different XMPP/Jabber accounts), Yubico Authenticator, MuPDF and oandbackup. A couple of other apps I find useful are AdAway (remove web ads), AndStatus, Calendar Widget, NewsBlur and ownCloud News Reader (RSS readers), Tinfoil for Facebook, Twidere (I find its UI somewhat nicer than AndStatus s), and c:geo. A number of things requires non-free components. As I discussed in my initial writeup from when I started using Replicant I don t like this, but I m accepting it temporarily. The list of issues that can be fixed by adding non-free components include the front camera, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wifi. After flashing the Replicant ROM image that I built (using the fine build instructions), I m using the following script to add the missing non-free files from Cyanogenmod. 
# Download Cyanogenmod 10.1.3 (Android 4.2-based) binaries:
# wget http://download.cyanogenmod.org/get/jenkins/42508/cm-10.1.3-i9300.zip
# echo "073a464a9f5129c490502c77374495c38a25ba790c10e27f51b43845baeba6bf  cm-10.1.3-i9300.zip"   sha256sum -c 
# unzip cm-10.1.3-i9300.zip
adb root
adb remount
adb shell mkdir /system/vendor/firmware
adb shell chmod 755 /system/vendor/firmware
# Front Camera
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/vendor/firmware/fimc_is_fw.bin /system/vendor/firmware/fimc_is_fw.bin
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/vendor/firmware/setfile.bin /system/vendor/firmware/setfile.bin
adb shell chmod 644 /system/vendor/firmware/fimc_is_fw.bin /system/vendor/firmware/setfile.bin
# Bluetooth
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/bin/bcm4334.hcd /system/vendor/firmware/
adb shell chmod 644 /system/vendor/firmware/bcm4334*.hcd
# GPS
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/bin/gpsd /system/bin/gpsd
adb shell chmod 755 /system/bin/gpsd
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/lib/hw/gps.exynos4.so /system/lib/hw/gps.exynos4.so
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/lib/libsecril-client.so /system/lib/libsecril-client.so
adb shell chmod 644 /system/lib/hw/gps.exynos4.so /system/lib/libsecril-client.so
# Wifi
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_apsta.bin_b1 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_apsta.bin_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_mfg.bin_b0 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_mfg.bin_b1 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_mfg.bin_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_p2p.bin_b0 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_p2p.bin_b1 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_p2p.bin_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_sta.bin_b0 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_sta.bin_b1 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/bcmdhd_sta.bin_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_mfg.txt /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_mfg.txt_murata /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_mfg.txt_murata_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_mfg.txt_semcosh /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_net.txt /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_net.txt_murata /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_net.txt_murata_b2 /system/vendor/firmware/
adb push cm-10.1.3-i9300/system/etc/wifi/nvram_net.txt_semcosh /system/vendor/firmware/
I hope this helps others switch to a better phone environment!

9 January 2015

Uwe Hermann: My GPG key transition to a 4096-bit key

This is long overdue, so here goes: 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1,SHA512
I'm transitioning my GPG key from an old 1024D key to a new 4096R key.
The old key will continue to be valid for some time, but I prefer
all new correspondance to be encrypted to the new key, and will be making
all signatures going forward with the new key.
This transition document is signed with both keys to validate the transition.
If you have signed my old key, I would appreciate signatures on my new
key as well, provided that your signing policy permits that without
re-authenticating me.
Old key:
pub   1024D/0x5DD5685778D621B4 2000-03-07
      Key fingerprint = 0F3C 34D1 E4A3 8FC6 435C  01BA 5DD5 6857 78D6 21B4
New key:
pub   4096R/0x1D661A372FED8F94 2013-12-30
      Key fingerprint = 9A17 578F 8646 055C E19D  E309 1D66 1A37 2FED 8F94
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1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=09bN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
The new key is available from keyservers, e.g. pgp.mit.edu or others. In other news: Yes, I've not been blogging much recently, will try to do updates more often. In the mean time, you can also refer to my Twitter account for random stuff or the new sigrok Twitter account for sigrok-related posts.

1 January 2015

Russ Allbery: 2014 Book Reading in Review

This year, after a series of catastrophically horrible and unethical management decisions, I walked away from my job of seventeen years and found a new job. As you might expect, reading wasn't the top priority for much of the year. I'm moderately surprised that I read as much as I did. The good side is that I'm now in a much better place both professionally and personally and no longer have to put up with draining and demoralizing nonsense happening on a regular basis. The downside for my review output is that the new job is more engrossing and is, in some ways, harder work, so I expect my reading totals going forward to stabilize somewhere below where they were in the past (although it's possible that the daily commute will change that equation somewhat). As mentioned last year, I had a feeling that something like this would happen (although not that it would be anywhere near this bad), so I had no specific reading goals for the year. Next year, I'm going to see how it goes for the first few months, and might then consider setting some goals if I want to encourage myself to take more time for reading. The below statistics are confined to the books I reviewed in 2014. I read three more books that I've not yet reviewed, partly because the end of the year isn't as packed with vacation as it was at Stanford. Those will be counted in 2014. Despite the low reading totals for the year, I read two 10 out of 10 books. My favorite book of the year was Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, which was one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read. Highly recommended if you like the space opera genre at all. A close second was my favorite non-fiction book of the year and the other 10 out of 10: Allie Brosh's collection Hyperbole and a Half. Those of you who have read her blog already know her brilliant and insightful style of humor. Those who haven't are in for a treat. I read a lot of non-fiction this year and not as much fiction, partly for mood reasons, so I don't have honorable mentions in the fiction department. In the non-fiction department, though, there are four more books worth mentioning. Cryptography Engineering, by Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier, and Tadayoshi Kohno, was the best technical book that I read last year, and a must-read for anyone who works on security or crypto software. David Graeber's Debt was the best political and economic book of the year and the book from which I learned the most. It changed the way that you think about debt and loans significantly. A close second, though, was David Roodman's Due Diligence, which is a must-read for anyone who has considered investing in microfinance or is curious about the phenomenon. We need more data-driven, thoughtful, book-length analysis like this in the world. Finally, The Knowledge, by Lewis Dartnell, is an entertaining and quixotic project. The stated goal of the book is to document the information required to rebuild civilization after a catastrophe, with hopefully fewer false starts and difficult research than was required the first time. I'm dubious about its usefulness for that goal, but it's a fascinating and entertaining book in its own right, full of detail about industrial processes and the history of manufacturing and construction that are otherwise hard to come by without extensive (and boring) research. Recommended, even if you're dubious about the efficacy of the project. The full analysis includes some additional personal reading statistics, probably only of interest to me.

28 December 2014

Russ Allbery: Review: Some Remarks

Review: Some Remarks, by Neal Stephenson
Publisher: William Morrow
Copyright: June 2013
ISBN: 0-06-202444-2
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 336
This is going to be another weird review, since I read this essay collection about three months ago, and I borrowed it from a friend. So this is both from fading memory and without a handy reference other than Internet searches. Apologies in advance for any important details that I miss. The advantage is that you'll see what parts of this collection stuck in my memory. Some Remarks is, as you might guess from the title, a rather random collection of material. There's one long essay that for me was the heart of the book (more on that in a moment), two other longer essays, two short stories, and thirteen other bits of miscellaneous writing of varying lengths. I found most of the short essays unremarkable. Stephenson uses a walking desk because sitting is bad for you that sentence contains basically all of the interesting content of one of the essays. I think it takes a large topic and some running room before Stephenson can get up to speed and produce something that's more satisfying than technological boosterism. That means the most interesting parts of this book are the three longer works. "In the Kingdom of Mao Bell" was previously published in Wired and is still available. Some Remarks contains only excerpts; Stephenson says that some of the original essay is no longer that interesting. I had mixed feelings about this one. Some of the sense of place he creates was fun to read, but Stephenson can't seem to quite believe that the Chinese don't care about "freedom" according to his definitions in the same way and therefore don't have the same political reaction to hacker culture that he does. This could have been an opportunity for him to question assumptions, but instead it's mostly an exercise in dubious, sweeping cultural evaluation, such as "the country has a long history of coming up with technologies before anyone else and then not doing a lot with them." A reminder that the detail with which Stephenson crams his writing is not always... true. Stronger is "Atoms of Cognition: Metaphysics in the Royal Society 1715 2010," which covers material familiar to readers of Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. The story of Newton, Leibniz, their rivalry, and the competing approaches to thinking about mathematics and science was my favorite part of that series, and in some ways the non-fiction treatment is better than the fictional one. If you liked the Baroque Cycle, this is worth reading. But the highlight of the book for me was "Mother Earth Mother Board." This is a long essay (50,000 words, practically a small book and the largest part of this collection) about the laying of undersea fiber-optic cables. Those who have read Cryptonomicon will recognize some of the themes here, but there's way more to this essay than there was to the bits about undersea cables in Cryptonomicon. It's mostly about technology, rather than people, which puts Stephenson on firmer ground. The bit about people reads more like a travelogue, full of Stephenson's whole-hearted admiration of people who build things and make things work. There's a bit of politics, a bit of history, a bit of tourism, and a lot of neat trivia about a part of the technological world that I'd not known much about before. I would say this is worth the price of the collection, but it too was previously published in Wired, so you can just read it online. Those reading this review on my web site will notice that I filed it in non-fiction. There are a couple of stories, but they're entirely forgettable (in fact, I had entirely forgotten them, and had to skim them again). But, for the record, here are short reviews of those: "Spew": This originally appeared in Wired and can still be read on-line. The protagonist takes a job as a sort of Internet marketing inspector who looks for deviations from expected profiles. While tracing down an anomaly, though, he finds another use of the Internet that's outside of the marketing framework he's using. It's unlikely that anyone who's been online for long will find much new in this story. Some of that is because it was originally published in 1994, but most of it is just that this isn't a very good story. Stephenson seems to have turned up his normal manic infodump to 11 to satisfy the early Wired aesthetic, and the result is a train wreck of jargon, bad slang, and superficial social observation. (3) "The Great Simoleon Caper": Originally published in TIME, this story too is still available online. It's primarily interesting because it's a story about Bitcoin (basically), written in 1995. And it's irritating for exactly the same reason that Bitcoin enthusiasm often tends to be irritating: the assumption that cryptocurrency is somehow a revolutionary attack on government-run currency systems. I'm not going to get into the ways in which this doesn't make sense given how money is used socially (David Graeber's Debt is the book to read if you want more information); just know that the story follows that path and doesn't engage with any of the social reasons why that outcome is highly unlikely. Indeed, the lengths to which the government tries to go to discredit cryptocurrency in this story are rather silly. Apart from that, this is typical early Stephenson writing. It's very in love with ideas, not as much with characterization, and consists mostly of people explaining things to each other. Sometimes this is fun, but when focused on topics about which considerably more information has become available, it doesn't age very well. (5) Overall, there was one great essay and a few interesting bits, but I wouldn't have felt I was missing much if I'd never read this collection. I borrowed Some Remarks from a friend, and I think that's about the right level of effort. If it falls into your hands, or you see it in a library, some of the essays, particularly "Mother Earth Mother Board," are worth reading, but given that the best parts are available on-line for free, I don't think it's worth a purchase. Rating: 6 out of 10

27 November 2014

Jonathan Dowland: PGP transition statement

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512,SHA1
I'm transitioning from my old, 1024-bit DSA PGP key, FD35 0B0A C6DD 5D91 DB7A 83D1 168B 4E71 7032 F238, to my newer, 4096-bit RSA key, E037 CB2A 1A00 61B9 4336 3C8B 0907 4096 06AA AAAA. If you have signed my old key, I'd be very grateful if you would consider signing my new key. (Thanks in advance!) This is long overdue! I've had 06AAAAAA since 2009, but it took me a while to get enough signatures on it for me to consider a transition. I still have far more signatures on my older key, owing to attending more conferences when I was using it than since I switched. This statement, available in plaintext at http://jmtd.net/log/pgp_transition/statement.txt, has been signed with both keys. I've marked my old key as expiring in around 72 days time, which coincides with my change of job, and will be just short of ten years since I generated it. 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.22 (Darwin)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=JBA4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

14 October 2014

Julian Andres Klode: Key transition

I started transitioning from 1024D to 4096R. The new key is available at: https://people.debian.org/~jak/pubkey.gpg and the keys.gnupg.net key server. A very short transition statement is available at: https://people.debian.org/~jak/transition-statement.txt and included below (the http version might get extended over time if needed). The key consists of one master key and 3 sub keys (signing, encryption, authentication). The sub keys are stored on an OpenPGP v2 Smartcard. That s really cool, isn t it? Somehow it seems that GnuPG 1.4.18 also works with 4096R keys on this smartcard (I accidentally used it instead of gpg2 and it worked fine), although only GPG 2.0.13 and newer is supposed to work. 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1,SHA512
Because 1024D keys are not deemed secure enough anymore, I switched to
a 4096R one.
The old key will continue to be valid for some time, but i prefer all
future correspondence to come to the new one.  I would also like this
new key to be re-integrated into the web of trust.  This message is
signed by both keys to certify the transition.
the old key was:
pub   1024D/00823EC2 2007-04-12
      Key fingerprint = D9D9 754A 4BBA 2E7D 0A0A  C024 AC2A 5FFE 0082 3EC2
And the new key is:
pub   4096R/6B031B00 2014-10-14 [expires: 2017-10-13]
      Key fingerprint = AEE1 C8AA AAF0 B768 4019  C546 021B 361B 6B03 1B00
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2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=VRZJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Filed under: Uncategorized

Julian Andres Klode: Key transition

I started transitioning from 1024D to 4096R. The new key is available at: https://people.debian.org/~jak/pubkey.gpg and the keys.gnupg.net key server. A very short transition statement is available at: https://people.debian.org/~jak/transition-statement.txt and included below (the http version might get extended over time if needed). The key consists of one master key and 3 sub keys (signing, encryption, authentication). The sub keys are stored on an OpenPGP v2 Smartcard. That s really cool, isn t it? Somehow it seems that GnuPG 1.4.18 also works with 4096R keys on this smartcard (I accidentally used it instead of gpg2 and it worked fine), although only GPG 2.0.13 and newer is supposed to work. 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1,SHA512
Because 1024D keys are not deemed secure enough anymore, I switched to
a 4096R one.
The old key will continue to be valid for some time, but i prefer all
future correspondence to come to the new one.  I would also like this
new key to be re-integrated into the web of trust.  This message is
signed by both keys to certify the transition.
the old key was:
pub   1024D/00823EC2 2007-04-12
      Key fingerprint = D9D9 754A 4BBA 2E7D 0A0A  C024 AC2A 5FFE 0082 3EC2
And the new key is:
pub   4096R/6B031B00 2014-10-14 [expires: 2017-10-13]
      Key fingerprint = AEE1 C8AA AAF0 B768 4019  C546 021B 361B 6B03 1B00
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2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=VRZJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Filed under: Uncategorized

13 July 2014

Russ Allbery: Review: Neptune's Brood

Review: Neptune's Brood, by Charles Stross
Series: Freyaverse #2
Publisher: Ace
Copyright: July 2013
ISBN: 1-101-62453-1
Format: Kindle
Pages: 325
Neptune's Brood is set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, but I wouldn't call it a sequel. It takes place considerably later, after substantial expansion of the robot civilization to the stars, and features entirely different characters (or, if there was overlap, I didn't notice). It also represents a significant shift in tone: while Saturn's Children is clearly a Heinlein pastiche and parody, Neptune's Brood takes its space opera more seriously. There is some situational humor assault auditors, for example but this book is played mostly straight, and I detected little or no Heinlein. This is Stross fleshing out his own space opera concept. This being Stross, that concept is not exactly conventional. This is a space opera about economics. Specifically, it's a space opera about interstellar economics, a debt pyramid, and a very interesting remapping of the continual growth requirements of capitalism to the outward expansion of colonization. The first-person protagonist comes from a "family" (as in Saturn's Children, the concept exists but involves rather more aggressive control of the instantiated "children") of bankers, but she is a forensic accountant and historian who specializes in analysis of financial scams. As you might expect, this is a significant clue about the plot. Neptune's Brood opens with Krina in search of her sister. She is supposed to be an itinerant scholar, moving throughout colonized space to spend some time with various scattered sisters, spreading knowledge and expanding her own. But it's clear from the start of the book that something else is going on, even before an assassin with Krina's face appears on her trail. Unfortunately, it takes roughly a third of the book to learn just what is happening beneath the surface, and most of that time is spent in a pointless interlude on a flying cathedral run by religious fanatics. The religion is a callback to Saturn's Children: robots who are trying to spread original humanity (the Fragiles) to the stars. This mostly doesn't go well, and is going particularly poorly for the ship that Krina works for passage on. But this is a brief gag that I thought went on much too long. The plot happens to Krina for this first section of the book rather than the other way around, little of lasting significance other than some character introductions occurs, and the Church itself, while playing a minor role in the later plot, is not worth the amount of attention that it gets. The best parts of the early book are the interludes in which Krina explains major world concepts to the reader. These are absolutely blatant infodumping, and I'm not sure how Stross gets away with them, but somehow he does, at least for me. They remind me of some of his blog posts, except tighter and fit into an interesting larger structure. Thankfully, once Krina finally arrives on Shin-Tethys, the plot improves considerably. There was a specific moment for me when the book became interesting: when Krina finds her sib's quarters in Shin-Tethys and analyzes what she finds there. It's the first significant thing in the book that she does rather than have done to her or thrust upon her, and she's a much better character when she's making decisions. This is also about the point where Stross starts fully explaining slow money, which is key to both the economics and the plot, and the plot starts to unwind its various mysteries and identify the motives of the players. Even then, Krina suffers from a lack of agency. Only at rare intervals does she get a chance to affect the story. Most of what she did of relevance to this book she did in the past, and while those descriptions of the backstory are interesting, they don't entirely make up for a passive protagonist. Thankfully, the other characters are varied and interesting enough, and the political machinations and cascading revelations captivating enough, that the last part of the book was very satisfying even with Krina on for the ride. This is a Stross novel, so it's full of two-dollar technical words mixed with technobabble. However, it shares with Saturn's Children the recasting of robots as the norm and fleshy humans as the exception, which means much of the technobabble is a straight substitution for our normal babble about meaty bodies and often works as an alienation technique. That makes it a bit more tolerable for me, although I still wished Stross would turn down the manic vocabulary in places. This bothers some people more than others; if you had no trouble with Accelerando, Neptune's Brood will pose no problems. I don't think the first section of this book was successful, but I liked the rest well enough to recommend it. If you like your space opera with a heavy dose of economics, a realistic attitude towards deep space exploration without faster-than-light technology, and a realistic perspective on the hostility of alien planets to Earth life, Neptune's Brood is a good choice. And any book that quotes David Graeber's Debt, and whose author has clearly paid attention to its contents, wins bonus points from me. Rating: 8 out of 10

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