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HTTP/2 200 cross-origin-resource-policy: cross-origin etag: W/"9e90929faa6af58f003a8a593f586a125b4d1d4f56a9def7206031250616fa39" date: Sat, 27 Dec 2025 19:41:20 GMT content-type: application/atom+xml; charset=UTF-8 server: blogger-renderd expires: Sat, 27 Dec 2025 19:41:21 GMT cache-control: public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate, max-age=1 x-content-type-options: nosniff x-xss-protection: 0 last-modified: Sat, 15 Nov 2025 20:39:01 GMT content-encoding: gzip content-length: 18892 x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000 tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80851133358748489812025-11-15T20:39:01.203+00:00FLOSSLinuxRandom musings about Free/Libre/Open Source Software - and also about Linux and the way that the world is, gadgets and trendsAndrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-60099819977219051942025-11-15T17:18:00.002+00:002025-11-15T20:39:01.102+00:002025-11-15 17:16 UTC Debian media testing for point release 13.2 of Trixie*Busy* day in Cambridge. A roomful of people, large numbers of laptops and a lot of parallel installations. Joined here by Emyr, Chris, Helen and Simon with Isy doing speech installs from her university accommodation. Two Andy's always makes it interesting. Steve providing breakfast, as ever. We're almost there: the last test install is being repeated to flush out a possible bug. Other release processes are being done in the background. Thanks again to Steve for hosting and all the hard work that goes into this from everybody.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakXOQ3914w9xmkEocygceNvlx4dW1EjyIcg1c0xGb-m14LmNPTbXp3_hmQYTyViv3JieZqm2mx49C4qU2qoG7qyF-lsXciVp0fnIpDUx4mYDI-LfOMo9kt5GTWyBshtRLaC-d95A5Fxm2F48lCB2rxT8sEya22T1iDododZurkWJbxX24Eq0Kbd4ubZc/s1600/1000000029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakXOQ3914w9xmkEocygceNvlx4dW1EjyIcg1c0xGb-m14LmNPTbXp3_hmQYTyViv3JieZqm2mx49C4qU2qoG7qyF-lsXciVp0fnIpDUx4mYDI-LfOMo9kt5GTWyBshtRLaC-d95A5Fxm2F48lCB2rxT8sEya22T1iDododZurkWJbxX24Eq0Kbd4ubZc/s320/1000000029.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>  Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-32252403565434610472025-05-17T19:00:00.001+01:002025-05-17T19:00:59.222+01:00Debian 12.11 - testing completed, images being signed and we'll be back for the next point release on ??? All finished and wrapping up. The bug I thought was fixed has been identified on two distinct sets of hardware. There are workarounds: the most sensible is *not* to use i386 without a modeset parameter but to just use amd64 instead. amd64 works on the identical problematic hardware in question - just use 64 bit. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-17941443720201328412025-05-17T16:31:00.001+01:002025-05-17T16:31:35.022+01:00Debian 12.11 testing - and we're nearly there  Almost finished the testing we're going to do at 15:29 UTC. It's all been good - we've found that at least one of the major bug reports from 12.10 is not reproducible now. All good - and many thanks to all testers: Sledge, rattusrattus, egw, smcv (and me). Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-12958183312546926622025-05-17T14:10:00.000+01:002025-05-17T14:10:06.089+01:00Debian 12.11 images testing - progress We're now well under way: Been joined by a Simon McVittie (smcv) and we're almost through testing most of the standard images. Live image testing is being worked through. All good so far without identifying problems other than mistyping :) Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-79920560489146656822025-05-17T12:51:00.001+01:002025-05-17T12:51:05.992+01:0020250517 - Debian point release - Bookworm 12.11 todayIn Cottenham with Andy and the usual suspects. The point release update files are already on the servers - anyone can do an "apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade" and update any running machine. This machine has just been upgraded and "just worked". Here to do release testing for the images that we will end up publishing later in the day.Expecting one more of us to turn up a bit later. Team will be working on IRC on #debian-cd Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-60673074479492035742025-01-11T14:59:00.006+00:002025-01-11T17:59:38.715+00:0020250111 Release media testing for Debian 12.9 We're part way through the testing of release media. RattusRattus, Isy, Sledge, smcv and Helen in Cambridge, a new tester Blew in Manchester, another new tester MerCury[m] and also  highvoltage in South Africa.Everything is going well so far and we're chasing through the test schedule. Sorry not to be there in Cambridgeshire with friends - but the room is fairly small and busy :)  [UPDATE/EDIT - at 20250111 1701 - we're pretty much complete on the testing] Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-45323062809445440272024-10-13T14:00:00.005+01:002024-10-15T23:13:32.708+01:00Mini-DebConf Cambridge 20241013 1300 LATE NEWS I haven't blogged until now: I should have done from Thursday onwards. It's a joy to be here in Cambridge at ARM HQ. Lots of people I recognise from last year  here: lots *not* here because this mini-conference is a month before the next one in Toulouse and many people can't attend both. Two days worth of chatting, working on bits and pieces, chatting and informal meetings was a very good and useful way to build relationships and let teams find some space for themselves. Lots of quiet hacking going on - a few loud conversations. A new ARM machine in mini-ITX format - see Steve McIntyre's blog on planet.debian.org about Rock 5 ITX. Two days worth of talks for Saturday and Sunday. For some people, this is a first time. Lightning talks are particularly good to break down barriers - three slides and five minutes (and the chance for a bit of gamesmanship to break the rules creatively). Longer talks: a couple from Steve Capper of ARM were particularly helpful to those interested in upcoming development. A couple of the talks in the schedule are traditional: if the release team are here, they tell us what they are doing, for example. ARM are main sponsors and have been very generous in giving us conference and facilities space. Fast network, coffee and interested people - what's not to like :)[EDIT/UPDATE - And my talk is finished and went fairly well: slides have now been uploaded and the talk is linked from the Mini-DebConf pages] Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-35181884679919113232024-08-31T19:42:00.002+01:002024-08-31T19:42:37.739+01:00Debian release weekend - media team update 202408311900 UTC We're doing fairly well: Debian release team have been working really hard on a double point release today. Final release for Bullseye as 11.11 as it moves to LTS. 12.7 Bookworm install media finishing tests - it's been quite a long day so far.For 11.11 we're part way through media tests. We've been joined by a lot of enthusiastic folk from Cape Town who've been a great help. Always nice to see old friends and new people join us on IRC - and they've just joined us for a short video call. This has gone well: two release day media checking and bug-squashing groups on two continents is excellent. Dear Cape Town - feel free to join us for the next time and we'll hold the video call open for longer. If we don't see any of you here in Cambridge for mini-Debconf, we'll meet up in Brest for Debconf 25. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-30649798522915570812024-08-31T12:40:00.000+01:002024-08-31T12:40:06.642+01:00Debian release weekend - Bullseye and Bookworm 20240831A double length Debian release means the Release Team don't get much peace What with last minute breaks And the time that it takes Treat them with respect today, please The media teams on the hook As we follow our normal play book With laptops all primed The images are timed Once we're told we'll start taking our look This is the last time for 11 And for Bookworm, it's just 12.7 Give us time for each test As we all do our best With our ThinkPads - I see at least seven :) Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-59417902556878568082024-02-12T22:13:00.003+00:002024-02-12T22:13:41.429+00:00Lessons from (and for) colleagues - and, implicitly, how NOT to get onI have had excellent colleagues both at my day job and, especially, in Debian over the last thirty-odd years. Several have attempted to give me good advice - others have been exemplars. People retire: sadly, people die. What impression do you want to leave behind when you leave here?Belatedly, I've come to realise that obduracy, sheer bloody mindedness, force of will and obstinacy will only get you so far. The following began very much as a tongue in cheek private memo to myself a good few years ago. I showed it to a colleague who suggested at the time that I should share it to a wider audience.<h3 style="text-align: left;">SOME ADVICE YOU MAY BENEFIT FROM</h3><h4 style="text-align: left;">Personal conduct</h4><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;">Never argue with someone you believe to be arguing idiotically - a dispassionate bystander may have difficulty telling who's who.</li><li style="text-align: left;">You can't make yourself seem reasonable by behaving unreasonably</li><li style="text-align: left;">It does not matter how correct your point of view is if you get people's backs up</li><li style="text-align: left;">They may all be #####, @@@@@, %%%% and ******* - saying so out loud doesn't help improve matters and may make you seem intemperate. </li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"> Working with others</h4><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;">Be the change you want to be and behave the way you want others to behave in order to achieve the desired outcome.</li><li style="text-align: left;">You can demolish someone's argument constructively and add weight to good points rather than tearing down their ideas and hard work and being ultra-critical and negative - no-one likes to be told "You know - you've got a REALLY ugly baby there"</li><li style="text-align: left;">It's easier to work with someone than to work against them and have to apologise repeatedly.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Even when you're outstanding and superlative, even you had to learn it all once. Be generous to help others learn: you shouldn't have to teach too many times if you teach correctly once and take time in doing so. </li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;">Getting the message across</h4><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;">Stop: think: write: review: (peer review if necessary): publish.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Clarity is all: just because you understand it doesn't mean anyone else will.</li><li style="text-align: left;">It does not matter how correct your point of view is if you put it across badly.</li><li style="text-align: left;">If you're giving advice: make sure it is:</li><li style="text-align: left;">Considered</li><li style="text-align: left;">Constructive</li><li style="text-align: left;">Correct as far as you can (and)</li><li style="text-align: left;">Refers to other people who may be able to help</li><li style="text-align: left;">Say thank you promptly if someone helps you and be prepared to give full credit where credit's due. </li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;">Work is like that</h4><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;">You may not know all the answers or even have the whole picture - consult, take advice - LISTEN TO THE ADVICE</li><li style="text-align: left;">Sometimes the right answer is not the immediately correct answer</li><li style="text-align: left;">Corollary: Sometimes the right answer for the business is not your suggested/preferred outcome</li><li style="text-align: left;">Corollary: Just because you can do it like that in the real world doesn't mean that you can do it that way inside the business. [This realisation is INTENSELY frustrating but you have to learn to deal with it]</li><li style="text-align: left;">DON'T ALWAYS DO IT YOURSELF - Attempt to fix the system, sometimes allow the corporate monster to fail - then do it yourself and fix it. It is always easier and tempting to work round the system and Just Flaming Do It but it doesn't solve problems in the longer term and may create more problems and ill-feeling than it solves. [Worked out for Andy Cater for himself after many years of fighting the system as a misguided missile - though he will freely admit that he doesn't always follow them as often as he should :) ]  </li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;">  </h4> Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-6668601594388600412024-02-10T22:54:00.001+00:002024-02-10T22:54:56.529+00:00Debian point releases - updated media for Bullseye (11.9) and Bookworm (12.5) - 2024-02-10 It's been a LONG day: two point releases in a day takes of the order of twelve or thirteen hours of fairly solid work on behalf of those doing the releases and testing.Thanks firstly to the main Debian release team for all the initial work.Thanks to Isy, RattusRattus, Sledge and egw in Cottenham, smcv and Helen closer to the centre of Cambridge, cacin and others who have dropped in and out of IRC and helped testing. I've been at home but active on IRC - missing the team (and the food) and drinking far too much coffee/eating too many biscuits. We've found relatively few bugs that we haven't previously noted: it's been a good day. Back again, at some point a couple of months from now to do this all over again.With luck, I can embed a picture of the Cottenham folk below: it's fun to know _exactly_ where people are because you've been there yourself. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjcvAaw_O0A6LlMR12xXCxuaEAFzr89VHNB-0i8pnC05SEVo3LMKmKFMyeyM0kEj9YWKFelTWx-Wpm-EjIxX1IGQH0S6JYVh4PIob4g04tJi2uV4egJgehScBXD-Rloz6ecJYFrHoQMbWu32Ki6xqe-jdvnhKpURhzdP1Pv_5KTkteqQa18qX6l6XOzY/s4000/DSC_0692.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjcvAaw_O0A6LlMR12xXCxuaEAFzr89VHNB-0i8pnC05SEVo3LMKmKFMyeyM0kEj9YWKFelTWx-Wpm-EjIxX1IGQH0S6JYVh4PIob4g04tJi2uV4egJgehScBXD-Rloz6ecJYFrHoQMbWu32Ki6xqe-jdvnhKpURhzdP1Pv_5KTkteqQa18qX6l6XOzY/s320/DSC_0692.jpg" width="240" /></a></div> Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-33622314266035272682023-11-26T20:00:00.001+00:002023-11-26T20:00:23.481+00:00MiniDebConf Cambridge - 26th November 2023 - Afternoon sessions<h1 style="text-align: left;">That's all folks ... </h1>Sadly, nothing too much to report.I delivered a very quick three slides lightning talk on Accessibility, WCAG [Web Content Accessibility Guidelines] version 2.2 and a request for Debian to do better WCAG 2.2:  <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#abstract">WCAG 2.2 Abstract</a>Debian-accessibility mailing list link: <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-accessibility/">debian-accessibility</a>I watched the other lightning talks but then left at 1500 - missing three good talks - to drive home at least partly in daylight. A great four days - the chance to put some names to faces and to recharge in Debian spaces. <h2 style="text-align: left;">Thanks to all involved and especially ... </h2>Thanks to Cambridge Debian folk for helping arrange evening meals, lifts and so on and especially to those who also happen be ARM employees who were badging us in and out through the four days Thanks to those who staffed Front Desk on both days and, especially, also to the ARM security guards who let us into site at 0745 on all four days and to Mark who did the weekend shift inside the building for Saturday and Sunday. Thanks to ARM for  excellent facilities, food, coffee, hosting us and coffee, to Codethink for sponsoring - and a lecture from Sudip and some interesting hardware - and Pexip for Pexip sponsorship (and employee attendance).  Here's to the next opportunity, whenever that may be. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-32210680017093231952023-11-26T10:29:00.003+00:002023-11-26T10:41:17.041+00:00Back at ARM for MiniDebConf day 2 - Morning sessions 26th November 2023 Quick recap of slides and safety information for the day from Steve McIntyre Now into the Release Team questions following a release team overview.A roomful of people all asking questions which are focused and provoke more questions - how unlike a Debian session :)May just have talked myself into giving a lightning talk this afternoon :)Now about to have a talk about from Sudip about OpenQA, kernel testing and automation Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-83821036897727456642023-11-25T16:34:00.002+00:002023-11-25T19:44:58.987+00:00Afternoon talks - MiniDebConf ARM Cambridge - Day 1A great talk on SteamOS progress to effective boot loaders for atomic OS updates.How to produce something that will allow instant updates and instant fallbacks when updating a whole OS image - lots of explanation - and it's good when three or four people who are directly interested in problems and solutions round, for example, Secure Boot are in the room.Jessica Clarke on CHERI, Morello and security protections in hardware, software and programming hardware which has verifiable pointers and routines. A couple of flourishes which had the room breaking out in applause.Roberto Sanchez and Santiago Rincon on suggestions for LTS and ways forward. The presentation very clearly set out what LTS is, is not, and maybe should be.Last presentation of the day was from Ian Jackson on a potential change to git based working and tagging. Then lots of chasing around to get people out of the building. Thanks very much to the Arm personnel, especially the security staff who have been helpful throughout the day with getting us all in and out Thanks to all involved with Arm, Codethink and Pexip for hosting and sponsorship without which this would not have been possible.   Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-22791777840717560612023-11-25T13:51:00.001+00:002023-11-25T13:52:07.643+00:00Lightning talks - MiniDebConf ARM Cambridge - Day 1 A quick one slide presentation from Helmut on how to use Debian without sudo - Sudo Apt Purge SudoA presentation on upcoming Ph.D research on Digital Obsolescence - from EdaAntarctic and Arctic research from Carlos Pina i Estany * Amazing * what you can get into three well chosen slides.Ten minutes until the afternoon's talks Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-694670308954336832023-11-25T12:04:00.003+00:002023-11-25T12:21:32.951+00:00Laptop with ARM, mobile phone BoF - MiniDebConf Cambridge day 1 So following Emanuele's talk on a Lenovo X13s, we're now at the Debian on Mobile BoF (Birds of a feather) discussion session from Arnaud Ferraris Discussion and questions on how best to support many variants of mobile phones: the short answer seems to be "it's still *hard* - too many devices around to add individual tweaks for every phone and manufacturer.One thing that may not have been audible in the video soundtrack - lots of laughter in the room prompted as someone's device said, audibly "You are not allowed to do that without unlocking your device"Upstream and downstream packages for hardware enablement are also hard: basic support is sometimes easy but that might even include non-support for charging, for example.Much discussion around the numbers of kernels and kernel image proliferation there could be. Debian tends to prefer *one* way of doing things with kernels.Abstracting hardware is the hardest thing but leads to huge kernels - there's no easy trade-off. Simple/feasible in multiple end user devices/supportable  - pick one ☺ Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-64032168729085868262023-11-25T10:30:00.003+00:002023-11-25T12:20:44.814+00:00ARM lecture theatre - MiniDebConf Cambridge day 1And we're here - a couple of lectures in. Welcome from one Steve, deep internals of ARM from another Steve. A room filling with people - and now a lecture I really need to listen to on a machine I'd like to own. As ever, the hallway track is interesting - and you find people who know you from IRC or mailing lists. Four screens and a lecture theatre layout. Here we go. Video team doing a great job, as ever - and our brand new talkmeister is doing a sterling job.  Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-8107858440292561312023-11-24T19:16:00.002+00:002023-11-25T12:19:48.802+00:00Mini-DebCamp ARM Cambridge day 2 Another really good day at ARM. Still lots of coffee and good food - supplemented by a cooked breakfast if you were early enough :) Lots of small groups of people working earnestly in the main lecture theatre and a couple of meeting rooms and the soft seating area: various folk arriving  ready for tomorrow. Video team setting up in the afternoon and running up servers and cabling - all ready for a full schedule tomorrow and Sunday.Many thanks to our sponsors - and especially the helpful staff at ARM who were helping us in and out, sorting out meeting rooms and generally coping with a Debian invasion. More people tomorrow for the weekend. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-69132589881772129782023-11-23T16:34:00.008+00:002023-11-27T21:13:26.925+00:0020231123 - UEFI install on a Raspberry Pi 4 - step by step instructions to a modified d-i<h2 style="text-align: left;">Motivation </h2> Andy (RattusRattus) and I have been formalising instructions for using Pete Batard's version of Tianocore (and therefore UEFI booting) for the Raspberry Pi 4 together with a Debian arm64 netinst to make a modified Debian installer on a USB stick which "just works" for a Raspberry Pi 4. Thanks also to Steve McIntyre for initial notes that got this working for us and also to Emmanuele Rocca for putting up some useful instructions for copying. <h2 style="text-align: left;">Recipe</h2>Plug in a USB stick - use dmesg or your favourite method to see how it is identified.Make a couple of mount points under /mnt - /mnt/data and /mnt/cdrom 1. Grab a USB stick, Partition using MBR. Make a single VFAT    partition, type 0xEF (i.e. EFI System Partition)For a USB stick (identified as sdX) below: $ sudo parted --script /dev/sdX mklabel msdos $ sudo parted --script /dev/sdX mkpart primary fat32 0% 100% $ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1 $ sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/data/ Download an arm64 netinst.iso https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/arm64/iso-cd/debian-12.2.0-arm64-netinst.iso2. Copy the complete contents of partition *1* from a Debian arm64    installer image into the filesystem (partition 1 is the installer    stuff itself) on the USB stick, in / $ sudo kpartx -v -a debian-12.2.0-arm64-netinst.iso # Mount the first partition on the ISO and copy its contents to the stick $ sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mnt/cdrom/ $ sudo rsync -av /mnt/cdrom/ /mnt/data/ $ sudo umount /mnt/cdrom 3. Copy the complete contents of partition *2* from that Debian arm64   installer image into that filesystem (partition 2 is the ESP) on    the USB stick, in /# Same story with the second partition on the ISO $ sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop0p2 /mnt/cdrom/ $ sudo rsync -av /mnt/cdrom/ /mnt/data/ $ sudo umount /mnt/cdrom$ sudo kpartx -d debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso $ sudo umount /mnt/data 4. Grab the rpi edk2 build from https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases    (I used 1.35) and extract it. I copied the files there into *2*    places for now on the USB stick:    /      (so the Pi will boot using it)    /rpi4  (so we can find the files again later) 5. Add the preseed.cfg file (attached) into *both* of the two initrd    files on the USB stick    - /install.a64/initrd.gz and    - /install.a64/gtk/initrd.gz    cpio is an awful tool to use :-(. In each case:$ cp /path/to/initrd.gz . $ gunzip initrd.gz $ echo preseed.cfg | cpio -H newc -o -A -F initrd $ gzip -9v initrd$ cp initrd.gz /path/to/initrd.gzIf you look at the preseed file, it will do a few things:    - Use an early_command to unmount /media (to work around Debian bug      #1051964)    - Register a late_command call for /cdrom/finish-rpi (the next      file - see below) to run at the end of the installation.    - Force grub installation also to the EFI removable media path,      needed as the rpi doesn't store EFI boot variables.    - Stop the installer asking for firmware from removable media (as      the rpi4 will ask for broadcom bluetooth fw that we can't      ship. Can be ignored safely.) 6. Copy the finish-rpi script (attached) into / on the USB stick. It    will be run at the end of the installation, triggered via the    preseed. It does a couple of things:    - Copy the edk2 firmware files into the ESP on the system that's      just been installer    - Remove shim-signed from the installed systems, as there's a bug      that causes it to fail on rpi4. I need to dig into this to see      what the issue is. That's it! Run the installer as normal, all should Just Work (TM).BlueTooth didn't quite work : raspberrypi-firmware didn't install until adding a symlink for boot/efi to /boot/firmware 20231127 - This may not be necessary because raspberrypi-firmware path has been fixed <h4 style="text-align: left;">Preseed.cfg </h4># The preseed file itself causes a problem - the installer medium is # left mounted on /medis so things break in cdrom-detect. Let's see if # we can fix that! d-i preseed/early_command string umount /media || true # Run our command to do rpi setup before reboot d-i preseed/late_command string /cdrom/finish-rpi # Force grub installation to the RM path grub-efi-arm64  grub2/force_efi_extra_removable boolean true # Don't prompt for missing firmware from removable media, # e.g. broadcom bluetooth on the rpi. d-i hw-detect/load_firmware boolean false <h4 style="text-align: left;">Finish.rpi </h4> !/bin/sh set -x grep -q -a RPI4 /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/CSRT if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then     echo "Not running on a Pi 4, exit!"     exit 0 fi # Copy the rpi4 firmware binaries onto the installed system. # Assumes the installer media is mounted on /cdrom. cp -vr /cdrom/rpi4/. /target/boot/efi/. # shim-signed doesn't seem happy on rpi4, so remove it mount --bind /sys /target/sys mount --bind /proc /target/proc mount --bind /dev /target/dev in-target apt-get remove --purge --autoremove -y shim-signed Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-51924290427557972542023-11-23T14:19:00.002+00:002023-11-23T14:32:37.970+00:00Arm Cambridge - mini-Debcamp 23 November 2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWx9Ze3oP-k_zcsA8hLbtdW4dAce0EyX3cC4AkNgh4FR2P0YIYEDl3lyEfC20Sf70YlQPCFPFLahMU0Q1Su0iJDxY55E7Wy3XJqmvlLauM-Ojw0W_563o4P0P6kTXd2srsKLdLfdIOCRW3_Hrbq_I0kL-jtd-QPk2psJy2Ex6Fx8mzzLRHGd0elB73X4w/s4000/IMG20231123123318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWx9Ze3oP-k_zcsA8hLbtdW4dAce0EyX3cC4AkNgh4FR2P0YIYEDl3lyEfC20Sf70YlQPCFPFLahMU0Q1Su0iJDxY55E7Wy3XJqmvlLauM-Ojw0W_563o4P0P6kTXd2srsKLdLfdIOCRW3_Hrbq_I0kL-jtd-QPk2psJy2Ex6Fx8mzzLRHGd0elB73X4w/s320/IMG20231123123318.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>  At Arm for two days before the mini-Debconf this weekend.First time at Arm for a few years: huge new buildings, shiny lecture theatre.Arm have made us very welcome. A superb buffet lunch and unlimited coffee plus soft drinks - I think they know what Debian folk are like. Not enough power blocks laid out at the beginning - only one per table - but we soon fixed that 😀 The room is full of Debian folk: some I know, some new faces. Reminiscing about meeting some of them from 25 years ago - and the chance to thank people for help over a long time. Andy (RattusRattus) and I have been working out the bugs on an install script using UEFI for a Raspberry Pi 4. More on that in the next post, maybe.As ever, it's the sort of place where "I can't get into the wiki" is sorted by walking three metres across the room or where an "I can't find where to get X for Raspberry Pi" can be solved by asking the person who builds Raspbian. "Did you try and sign up to the Debian wiki last week - you didn't follow the instructions to mail wiki@ - I _know_ you didn't because I didn't see the mail ... " My kind of place and my kind of people, as ever. Thanks again to Arm who are one of our primary sponsors for this mini-Debconf. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-41139270573067316172023-10-07T17:59:00.001+01:002023-10-07T17:59:18.519+01:00Point release weekend for Debian: two releases this weekend: 202311071653Over in Cambridge with RattusRattus, Sledge, egw and Isy. Andy is very kindly putting us up. We're almost all of the way through testing 12.2 and some of the way through testing 11.8. It's a LONG day - heads down into laptops and relatively quiet - I think we're all tired and we've a way to go yet.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNVA91CDDh8RuGSBtHLlGf8XeulMIr_Y92Khx7W-LxPferdUJ-O2B4M3Gr23lIZ-tCKgSsg_qrI74VpJEpjxRmUEx49VnynaK13FNRbe38mmGOTpJVhF_K4XWqsjrsm98GMy6rjryDpkA7DJ-Adp_9LBD5NYsiNHnzlLEC-l5W7BuITng_GB-mtH3ZccQ/s4000/IMG20231007173620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNVA91CDDh8RuGSBtHLlGf8XeulMIr_Y92Khx7W-LxPferdUJ-O2B4M3Gr23lIZ-tCKgSsg_qrI74VpJEpjxRmUEx49VnynaK13FNRbe38mmGOTpJVhF_K4XWqsjrsm98GMy6rjryDpkA7DJ-Adp_9LBD5NYsiNHnzlLEC-l5W7BuITng_GB-mtH3ZccQ/s320/IMG20231007173620.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-55497836898179474882023-08-29T22:23:00.009+01:002023-08-30T21:01:28.115+01:00Building a mirror of various Red Hat oriented "stuff"<h2 style="text-align: left;">Building a mirror for rpm-based distributions. </h2>I've already described in brief how I built a mirror that currently mirrors Debian and Ubuntu on a daily basis. That was relatively straightforward given that I know how to install Debian and configure a basic system without a GUI and the ftpsync scripts are well maintained, I can pull some archives and get one pushed to me such that I've always got up to date copies of Debian and Ubuntu.I wanted to do something similar using Rocky Linux to pull in archives for Almalinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS, CentOS Stream and (optionally) Fedora.(This was originally set up using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a developer's subscription and rebuilt using Rocky Linux so that the machine could be passed on to someone else if necessary. Red Hat 9.1 has moved to x86_64v2 - on the machine I have (HP Microserver gen 8) 9.1 it fails immediately. It has been rebuilt to use Rocky 8.8).This is a minimal install of Rocky as console only - the machine it's on only has 4G of memory so won't run a GUI reliably. It will run Cockpit so can  be remotely administered. One user to run everything - mirror. Minimal install of Rocky 8.7 from DVD .iso. SELinux is enabled, SSH works for remote access. SELinux had to be tweaked to allow /srv/ the appropriate permissions to be served by nginx. /srv is a large LVM volume rather than a RAID 6 - I didn't have enough disks Adding nginx, enabling Cockpit and editing the Rocky Linux mirroring scripts resulted in something straightforward to reproduce. <h3 style="text-align: left;">nginx</h3><h4 style="text-align: left;">I cheated and stole large parts of my Debian config. The crucial part to remember is that there is no autoindexing by default and I had to dig to find the correct configuration snippet. </h4><blockquote>  # Load configuration files for the default server block.<h4 style="text-align: left;">        include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;         location / {                 autoindex on;                 autoindex_exact_size off;                 autoindex_format html;                 autoindex_localtime off;                 # First attempt to serve request as file, then                 # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.                 try_files $uri $uri/ =404;         } </h4></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"> Rocky Linux mirroring scripts</h3><h4 style="text-align: left;">Systemd unit file for service </h4><blockquote>[Unit] Description=Rocky Linux Mirroring script [Service] Type=simple User=mirror Group=mirror ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rockylinux [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target </blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"> Rocky linux  timer file</h4><blockquote>[Unit] Description=Run Rocky Linux mirroring script daily [Timer] OnCalendar=*-*-* 08:13:00 OnCalendar=*-*-* 22:13:00 Persistent=true [Install] WantedBy=timers.target </blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;">Mirror script</h4><blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;">#!/bin/env bash # # mirrorsync - Synchronize a Rocky Linux mirror # By: Dennis Koerner <koerner@netzwerge.de> # # The latest version of this script can be found at: # https://github.com/rocky-linux/rocky-tools # # Please read https://docs.rockylinux.org/en/rocky/8/guides/add_mirror_manager # for further information on setting up a Rocky mirror. # # Copyright (c) 2021 Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation </h4></blockquote>This is a very long script in total. Crucial parts I changed only listed the mirror to pull from and the place to put it.<blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"># A complete list of mirrors can be found at # https://mirrors.rockylinux.org/mirrormanager/mirrors/Rocky src="mirrors.vinters.com::rocky" # Your local path. Change to whatever fits your system. # $mirrormodule is also used in syslog output. mirrormodule="rocky-linux" dst="/srv/${mirrormodule}" filelistfile="fullfiletimelist-rocky" lockfile="/home/mirror/rocky.lockfile" logfile="/home/mirror/rocky.log"</div></blockquote></blockquote> Logfile looks something like this: the single time spec file is used to check whether another rsync needs to be run <blockquote>deleting 9.1/plus/x86_64/os/repodata/3585b8b5-90e0-4856-9df2-95f646bc62c7-PRIMARY.xml.gz sent 606,565 bytes  received 38,808,194,155 bytes  44,839,746.64 bytes/sec total size is 1,072,593,052,385  speedup is 27.64 End: Fri 27 Jan 2023 08:27:49 GMT fullfiletimelist-rocky unchanged. Not updating at Fri 27 Jan 2023 22:13:16 GMT fullfiletimelist-rocky unchanged. Not updating at Sat 28 Jan 2023 08:13:16 GMT </blockquote>It was essentially easier to store fullfiletimelist-rocky in /home/mirror than anywhere else. Very similar small modifications to the Rocky mirroring scripts  were used to mirror the other distributions I'm mirroring. (Almalinux, CentOS, CentOS Stream, EPEL and Rocky Linux).     Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-7271932001951169952023-08-28T11:51:00.003+01:002023-08-29T22:08:47.610+01:0020230828 - OMGWTFBBQ - Breakfast is happening more or less And nothing changes: rediscovered from past Andrew at his first Cambridge BBQ and almost the first blog post here: "House full of people I knew only from email, some very old friends. Wires and leads filling the front room floor - laptops _everywhere_ . ... Thirty second rule on sofa space - if you left for more than about 30 seconds you had to sit on the floor when you got back (I jammed myself onto a corner of the sofa once I realised I'd barely get through the crush :) ) [Forget students in a mini / UK telephone box - how many DDs can you fit into a very narrow kitchen :) ] It's a huge, dysfunctional family with its own rules, geeky humour and in-jokes but it's MINE - it's the people I want to hang out with and, as perverse as it sounds, just being there gave me a whole new reaffirmed sense of identity and a large amount of determination to carry on "wasting my time with Linux" and Debian" The *frightening* thing - this is from August 31st 2009 ... where have the years gone in between. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-58832627137525847392023-08-26T21:34:00.001+01:002023-08-26T21:35:14.861+01:0020230826 - OMGWTFBBQ - BBQ still in full swing There's been a very successful barbeque running in the garden: burgers, sausages, beer, vegetarian dishes and then ice cream.The chance to catch up with people you only meet in IRC. Talking and laughter - and probably a couple of games of Mao.Thanks also to our sponsors - Collabora, Codethink and RattusRattus for contributions to food and drink. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8085113335874848981.post-67643909063278575222023-08-26T11:57:00.001+01:002023-08-26T11:57:45.878+01:0020230826 OMGWTFBBQ - Cambridge is waking up The meat has been fetched: those of us in the house are about to get bacon sandwiches. Pepper the dog is in the garden. Time for the mayhem to start, I think. Various folk are travelling here so it will soon be crowded: the weather is sunny but cool and it looks good for a three day weekend. This is a huge effort that falls to Steve and Jo and a huge disruption for them each year - for which many thanks, as ever. [And, as is traditional on this blog, the posts only ever seem to appear from Cambridge]. Andrew Caterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17644077996431326998noreply@blogger.com0

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