Debian

I have been using NVEnc – a NVIDIA hardware based encoder – for quite some time now. Mostly because I was pointed to it by FastFlix, one of the best video en/recoding frontend programs out there. Having switched to Arch Linux lately, I realized ... [More] there is no package of it – perfect time to start contributing and preparing an AUR package for it. Since it is my first package I made for Arch, it took me a bit of reading through the excellent wiki of Arch, and comparing a few other PKGBUILD files. After a few trials (and several errors) finally the package seems ready to me: nvenc @ AUR. More expert Arch packagers, please leave comments or contact me with suggestions for improvements, all of that is more than welcome! That said, now back to some video encoding (just got all the James Bond on BluRay ;-). Enjoy [Less]

In 2017, I was attending FOSDEM when GNOME announced that I was to become the new Executive Director of the Foundation. Now, nearly 5 years later, I’ve decided the timing is right for me to step back and for GNOME to start looking for its next ... [More] leader. I’ve been working closely with Rob and the rest of the board to ensure that there’s an extended and smooth transition, and that GNOME can continue to go from strength to strength. GNOME has changed a lot in the last 5 years, and a lot has happened in that time. As a Foundation, we’ve gone from a small team of 3, to employing people to work on marketing, investment in technical frameworks, conference organisation and much more beyond. We’ve become the default desktop on all major Linux distributions. We’ve launched Flathub to help connect application developers directly to their users. We’ve dealt with patent suits, trademarks, and bylaw changes. We’ve moved our entire development platform to GitLab. We released 10 new GNOME releases, GTK 4 and GNOME 40. We’ve reset our relationships with external community partners and forged our way towards that future we all dream of – where everyone is empowered by technology they can trust. For that future, we now need to build on that work. We need to look beyond the traditional role that desktop Linux has held – and this is something that GNOME has always been able to do. I’ve shown that the Foundation can be more than just a bank account for the project, and I believe that this is vital in our efforts to build a diverse and sustainable free software personal computing ecosystem. For this, we need to establish programs that align not only with the unique community and technology of the project, but also deliver those benefits to the wider world and drive real impact. 5 years has been the longest that the Foundation has had an ED for, and certainly the longest that I’ve held a single post for. I remember my first GUADEC as ED. As you may know, like many of you, I’m used to giving talks at conferences – and yet I have never been so nervous as when I walked out on that stage. However, the welcome and genuine warmth that I received that day, and the continued support throughout the last 5 years makes me proud of what a welcoming and amazing community GNOME is. Thank you all. [Less]

I am very happy to report that a new version of the VLC bittorrent plugin was just uploaded into debian. The changes since last time is mostly code clean in the download code. The package is currently in Debian unstable, but should be available in ... [More] Debian testing son. To test it, simply install it like this: apt install vlc-plugin-bittorrent After it is installed, you can try to use it to play a file downloaded live via bittorrent like this: vlc https://archive.org/download/Glass_201703/Glass_201703_archive.torrent It can also use magnet links and local .torrent files like the ones provided by the Internet Archive. Another example is the Love Nest Buster Keaton movie, where one can click on the 'Torrent' link to get going. As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b. [Less]

I am very happy to report that a new version of the VLC bittorrent plugin was just uploaded into debian. The changes since last time is mostly code clean in the download code. The package is currently in Debian unstable, but should be available in ... [More] Debian testing son. To test it, simply install it like this: apt install vlc-plugin-bittorrent After it is installed, you can try to use it to play a file downloaded live via bittorrent like this: vlc https://archive.org/download/Glass_201703/Glass_201703_archive.torrent It can also use magnet links and local .torrent files like the ones provided by the Internet Archive. Another example is the Love Nest Buster Keaton movie, where one can click on the 'Torrent' link to get going. As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b. [Less]

Troubleshooting network issues. Completely forgot how to use dig command.

About a month ago, I got tired of waiting for the newest member of the Raspberry product lineup to be sold in Mexico, and I bought it from a Chinese reseller through a big online shopping platform. I paid quite a bit of premium (~US$85 instead of ... [More] the advertised US$15), and got it delivered ten days later… Anyway, it’s known this machine does not yet boot mainline Linux. The vast majority of ARM systems require the bootloader to load a Device Tree file, presenting the hardware characteristics map. And while the RPi Zero 2 W (hey… what an awful and confusing naming scheme they chose!) is mostly similar to a RPi3B+, it is not quite the same thing. A kernel with RPi3B+’s device tree will refuse to boot. Anyway, I started digging, and found that some days ago Stephan Wahren sent a patch to the linux-arm-kernel mailing list with a matching device tree. Read the patch! It’s quite simple to read (what is harder is to know where each declaration should go, if you want to write your own, of course). It basically includes all basic details for the main chip in the RPi3 family (BCM2837), pulls in also the declarations from the BCM2836 present in the RPi2, and adds the necessary bits for the USB OTG connection and the WiFi and Bluetooth declarations. Registers the model name as Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which you can easily see in the following photo, informs the kernel it has 512MB RAM, and… Well, really, it’s an easy device tree to read, don’t be shy! So, I booted my RPi 3B+ with a freshly downloaded Bookworm image, installed and unpacked linux-source-5.15, applied Stephan’s patch, and added the following for the DTB to be generated in the arm64 tree as well: --- /dev/null 2022-01-26 23:35:40.747999998 +0000 +++ arch/arm64/boot/dts/broadcom/bcm2837-rpi-zero-2-w.dts 2022-02-13 06:28:29.968429953 +0000 @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +#include "arm/bcm2837-rpi-zero-2-w.dts" Then, ran a simple make dtbs, and… Failed, because bcm283x-rpi-wifi-bt.dtsi is not yet in the kernel 😦. OK, no worries: Getting wireless to work is a later step. I commented out the lines causing conflict (10, 33-35, 134-136), and: root@rpi3-20220212:/usr/src/linux-source-5.15# make dtbs DTC arch/arm64/boot/dts/broadcom/bcm2837-rpi-zero-2-w.dtb Great! Just copied over that generated file to /boot/firmware/, moved the SD over to my RPiZ2W, and behold! It boots! When I bragged about it in #debian-raspberrypi, steev suggested me to pull in the WiFi patch, that has also been submitted (but not yet accepted) for kernel inclusion. I did so, uncommented the lines I modified, and built again. It builds correctly, and –again– copied the DTB over. It still does not find the WiFi; dmesg still complains about a missing bit of firmware (failed to load brcm/brcmfmac43430b0-sdio.raspberrypi,model-zero-2-w.bin). Steev pointed out it can be downloaded from RPi Distro’s GitHub page, but I called it a night and didn’t pursue it any further ;-) So… I understand this post is still a far cry from saying “our images properly boot under a RPi 0 2 W”, but… we will get there 😉 [Less]

apt-offline 1.8.4 apt-offline version 1.8.4 has been released. This release includes many bug fixes but the important ones are: Better GPG signature handling Support for verifying InRelease files Changelog apt-offline (1.8.4-1) unstable; ... [More] urgency=medium [ Debian Janitor ] * Update standards version to 4.5.0, no changes needed. [ Paul Wise ] * Clarify file type in unknown file message * Fix typos * Remove trailing whitespace * Update LICENSE file to match official GNU version * Complain when there are no valid keyrings instead of missing keyrings * Make all syncrhronised files world readable * Fix usage of indefinite articles * Only show the APT Offline GUI once in the menu * Update out of date URLs * Fix date and whitespace issues in the manual page * Replace stereotyping with an appropriate word * Switch more Python shebangs to Python 3 * Correct usage of the /tmp/ directory * Fix YAML files * Fix usage of the log API * Make the copying of changelog lines less brittle * Do not split keyring paths on whitespace [ Ritesh Raj Sarraf ] * Drop the redundant import of the apt module. Thanks to github/dandelionred * Fix deprecation of get_bugs() in debianbts * Drop the unused IgnoredBugTypes * Set encoding for files when opening * Better error logging when apt fails * Don't mandate a default option * Demote metadata errors to verbose * Also log an error message for every failed .deb url * Check hard for the url type * Check for ascii armored signature files. Thanks to David Klnischkies * Add MIME type for InRelease files * Drop patch 0001-Drop-the-redundant-import-of-the-apt-module.patch. Now part of the 1.8.4 release * Prepare release 1.8.3 * Prepare release 1.8.4 * debian packaging + Bump debhelper compatibility to 13 + Update install files [ Dean Anderson ] * [#143] Added support for verifying InRelease files -- Ritesh Raj Sarraf Sat, 12 Feb 2022 18:52:58 +0530 Resources Tarball and Zip archive for apt-offline are available here Packages should be available in Debian. Development for apt-offline is currently hosted here [Less]

Since March/April 2000 I was deeply involved in Debian m68k and operated multiple m68k autobuilder for over a decade. In fact my Amiga 3000 named “arrakis” was the second buildd for m68k in addition to the Debian owned Amiga 3000UX named ... [More] “kullervo”. Back in that time there was some small website running on Kullervo to display some information about the Debian autobuilder. After some time we (as m68k porters) moved that webpage away from Kullervo to my root server. Step by step this site evolved to Buildd.Net and extended to other archs and “suites” beside unstable like backports or non-volatile. The project got more and more complex and beyond my ability to do a complete necessary rewrite. So, in 2016 I asked for adoption of the project and in 2018 I shut it down, because (apparently) there was nobody taking over. From November 2005 until January 2018 I do have entries in my PostgreSQL database for Buildd.Net. I think the data in the database might be interesting for those that want to examine that data. You can use the data to see how build times have increased over time, which e.g. led to the expulsion of m68k as release arch, because the arch couldn’t keep up anymore. I could imagine that you could do other interesting analysis with that data. For example how new versions of the toolchain increased the build times, maybe even if a specific version of e.g. binutils or gcc had a positive effect on certain archs, but a negative effect on other archs. If there is interest in this data I could open the database to the public or even upload the dump of the database so that you can download and install it on your own. [Less]

Back to the old and new normal: inbox zero So, a long time ago, on the last two days of January 2020 I had reached zero unread mails in my inbox and all mailing lists and then... some stuff kept me distracted for a (too) long time... And then ... [More] two weeks ago on the 29th of January 2022, I've reached inbox zero again, and again on the 30th and then I had a hardware issue and couldn't really use my computer for two days (one day trying to fix, the other copying data around...) and thus only on February 2nd I've hit zero unread mails again and again and again, every day for the last 9 days up until today. Yay! I'm sure there will be days (and weeks) where I won't manage to deal with all my incoming mail everyday, but I surely hope I'll manage at least once a month. As I did in 2019 when I started tracking this Reaching inbox zero every day is good for several reasons and probably the most important one is peace of mind. Even though the incoming flood of email never really stops, by reaching inbox zero I can achieve the feeling that I've dealt with all my emails for the day and that I can put email off my focus, at least for that day and despite emails coming in... ...and then email is too easy to be used as a todo list. Narf. So I guess I need to improve those workflows eventually as well. And offline days, do you remember those? Fully offline even, and by choice?!! [Less]

The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 204. This version includes the following changes: [ Chris Lamb ] * Don't run the binwalk comparator tests as root (or fakeroot) as the latest version of binwalk ... [More] has some security protection against doing precisely this. * If we fail to scan a file using binwalk, return 'False' from BinwalkFile.recognizes rather than raise a traceback. * If we fail to import the Python "binwalk" module, don't accidentally report that we are missing the "rpm" module instead. [ Mattia Rizzolo ] * Use dependencies to ensure that "diffoscope" and "diffoscope-minimal" packages always have the precise same version. You find out more by visiting the project homepage. [Less]