Gitolite and Gitweb

This article is for self, so that I don’t again forget the specifics. The last time I did the same setup, it wasn’t very important in terms of security. gitolite(3) + gitweb can give an impressive git tool with very simple user acls. After you setup gitolite, ensure that the umask value in gitolite is approriate, i.e. the gitolite group has r-x privilege. This is needed for the web view. Add your apache user to the gitolite group. [Read More]

Debian GNU/Hurd on VirtualBox

One of the great things about Debian is the wide range of kernels it supports can run. This gives the user the flexibility to not spend time on the common userland stuff. For example, most apps, package management and system admin tasks are common across all Debian platforms. These platforms may not be optimal at par to Linux, but still, choice is good. For long, I had used Debian GNU/Hurd, only on a KVM hypervisor. [Read More]

Apport in Debian

Looking at the PTS entries, I realized that it has been more than 2 yrs, since I pushed the first Apport packages into Debian. We have talked about it [in the past](http://www.researchut.com/blog/report- bugs-with-apport-3), and do not see a direct need for apport yet. That is one reason why it still resides (and will continue to) in Experimental. Even though not used as a bug reporting tool, Apport can still be a great tool for (end) users to detect crashes. [Read More]

apt-offline 1.6

I am pleased to announce the release of apt-offline - 1.6 This release is mostly a bug fix release, which every user should upgrade to. It also fixes a major bug in the way we limited the validation of GPG integrity, for the APT repository lists ( Thank you Paul Wise ). Also, In the last release, we migrated from custom magic library to the python shipped ctype python-magic library. That allowed some bugs to creep, and hopefully now, all those bugs should be fixed. [Read More]

What firmware

Dear Lazy Web, I have an [HP Envy J104TS](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/envy- touchsmart-15/specs.html) laptop. Recently I saw an interesting message in the kernel log. [99360.969652] [Firmware Bug]: battery: (dis)charge rate invalid. Does anybody know what firmware is it referring to here ? I don’t think the current set of firmwares shiped by linux are involved in battery related information. Is it the BIOS ? [95474.561491] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [95474.803578] r8169 0000:0f:00. [Read More]

Linux Containers and Productization

Linux has improved many many things over the last couple of years. Of the many improvements, the one that I’ve started leveraging the most today, are Control Groups. In the past, when there was a need to build a prototype for a solution, we needed hardware. Then came the virtualization richness to Linux. It came in 2 major flavors, KVM ( Full Virtualization ) and Xen ( Para Virtualization ). Over the years, the difference of para vs full, for both the implementations, is almost none. [Read More]

Linux Desktop in 2014

We are almost at the end of 2014. While 2014 has been a year with many mixed experiences, I think it does warrant one blog entry ;-) Recently, I’ve again started spending more time on Linux products / solutions, than spending time focused on a specfic subsystem. This change has been good. It has allowed me to re-cap all the advancements that have happened in the Linux world, umm… in the last 5 years. [Read More]

Laptop Mode Tools 1.66

I am pleased to announce the release of Laptop Mode Tools at version 1.66. This release fixes an important bug in the way Laptop Mode Tools is invoked. Users, now when disable it in the config file, the tool will be disabled. Thanks to bendlas @github for narrowing it down. The GUI configuration tool has been improved, thanks to Juan. And there is a new power saving module for users with ATI Radeon cards. [Read More]

apt-offline 1.5

I am very pleased to announce the release of apt-offline, version 1.5. In version 1.4, the offline bug report functionality had to be dropped. In version 1.5, it is back again. apt-offline now uses the new Debian native BTS library. Thanks to its developers, this library is much more slim and neat. The only catch is that it depends on the SOAPpy library which currently is not stock in Python. If you run apt-offline of Debian, you may not have to worry as I will add a Recommends on that package. [Read More]

apt-offline 1.4

apt-offline 1.4 has been released [1]. This is a minor bug fix release. In fact, one feature, offline bug reports (–bug-reports), has been dropped for now. The Debian BTS interface seems to have changed over time and the older debianbts.py module (that used the CGI interface) does not seem to work anymore. The current debbugs.py module seems to have switched to the SOAP interface. There are a lot of changes going on personally, I just haven’t had the time to spend. [Read More]